La famiglie delle vittime del Massacro di Ballymurphy incontrano il Segretario di Stato
Ballymurphy families to meet NI Secretary
Families of 11 people killed in west Belfast, by the same parachute regiment involved in Bloody Sunday six months later, are to meet the Northern Ireland Secretary..
Owen Paterson will hold talks with relatives who also want an inquiry into the shooting dead of their loved ones in Ballymurphy, following Lord Mark Saville’s report into the killings in Londonderry.
The Ballymurphy killings in August 1971 took place during the Army’s Operation Demetrius – the arrest of those who would be interned on suspicion of involvement in paramilitary activity.
The troops later claimed they opened fire after being shot at by republicans.
Victims included Catholic priest Father Hugh Mullan and mother-of-eight Joan Connolly – her daughter Briege Voyle said at a press conference on Thursday: “Bloody Sunday could have been avoided if the authorities had looked in to what happened in Ballymurphy.”
As the relatives called for an international independent investigation, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams described the events in Ballymurphy as “another striking example of the brutality with which the paras acted and how the British system then connived in a cover-up.”
He added: “The British government in acknowledging the wrong done in Derry must acknowledge the wrong done in Ballymurphy and elsewhere and to these families. It must make a public apology for what it and its armed forces did.”
Government sources have indicated a meeting will go ahead.
