New Delhi, April 12 -- Violence has escalated in Northern Ireland over COVID-19 restrictions and rising post-Brexit tensions in the region. Many pro-British unionists fiercely oppose the new trade barriers introduced between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom as part of Britain's departure from the European Union. Many Catholic nationalists aspire to unification with Ireland while Protestant unionists want to stay in the UK. Thus far, the rioters have paid no heed to pleas for calm. Twenty-three years after the peace deal was signed in Northern Ireland, there are growing fears of a return to sectarian violence after several consecutive nights of rioting in Belfast.

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