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N.Ireland marks 50 years since 'Bloody Sunday'
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A young marcher holds up a placard during the annual Bloody Sunday march from the Creggan area to the Bogside in Londonderry (Derry), Northern Ireland, on January 30, 2022, on the 50th anniversary of the Bloody Sunday shootings. (AFP/Paul Faith)
R
elatives of 13 civil rights protesters shot dead in Northern Ireland by British soldiers 50 years ago demanded justice on Sunday, as they commemorated one of the darkest days in modern UK history.
The "Bloody Sunday" victims' names were read out under a leaden sky to the mournful notes of an Irish flute, as the relatives and hundreds of supporters gathered for a memorial event in the city of Londonderry -- known as Derry to pro-Irish nationalists.
Earlier, many had retraced a peaceful march through the divided city that ended in carnage on January 30, 1972.
Michael McKinney, whose brother William was among those killed, said the UK government was "scared" of allowing any prosecutions of the soldiers for fear of what a trial might uncover.
But addressing the remembrance service, he stressed: "We will not go away and we will not be silenced.
"We shall overcome," McKinney added, invoking the US civil rights message that was sung by the marchers in 1972, in pressing their demands for Catholic rights against Londonderry's Protestant minority.
At the head of Sunday's procession were 14 children each bearing a white rose -- a 14th man who was shot died months later, although an official inquiry said his death was unrelated to his wounds.
