Paramilitary-attack victim loses his leg
A 35-year-old man shot in a paramilitary-style attack by dissident republicans has lost a leg.
The man was targeted as he walked through the Twinbrook estate on the outskirts of West Belfast last Wednesday.
He was blasted with a shotgun at close range, causing catastrophic injuries.
Surgeons were unable to save his leg because of severe muscle and bone damage.
Using a recognised codeword, the dissident republican organisation Oglaigh na hEireann admitted responsability for the attack at Glasvey Rise.
The group has carried out the majority of paramilitary-style shootings in Belfast over the past three years, including some of the most brutal attacks.
Shotguns are increasingly used in such attacks.
In January The Irish News revealed that almost half of all paramilitary-style shootings by dissident republicans last year involved shotguns.
Consultant Harry Lewis, based at Ulster Hospital in Dundonald, Co Down, said: “A shotgun is a dirty weapon and causes much more serious high-energy injury than, say a low-velocity round.
“If fired at close range at the lower limb there can be widespread nerve damage and at that point, with an injury of that magnitude, you could expect an amputation.”
Several men have lost limbs in paramilitary attacks. In May 1998 Andrew Peden, a father-of-three from Shanklill Road in west Belfast, had both legs amputated after was abducted and shot by the UVF.
The latest shooting comes as police said dissident republicans put a pipe bomb under a car owned by an officer’s elderly parents in Derry.
