When Mohammed Idris’s car broke down last week, no taxi driver wanted to pick him up from outside his shop in Belfast.
Today, the 49-year-old is on the phone in an upstairs office above the former Bash cafe renowned for its Ethiopian coffee served with popcorn in the Jebana-style service.The electrical engineer, who worked on a Sudanese power plant, sought asylum in Ireland 16 years ago. He lived first in Sligo – “I’m a Sligo man,” he jokes – before moving to Belfast.
“Even the taxis do not want to come. I had to call three or four times to find a taxi as I had no car last week. When you say ‘Donegall Road, Sandy Row’, no one wants to come here.” Earlier this week, a Belfast court heard that police in Northern Ireland were receiving daily reports of race hate incidents as a man appeared charged with rioting.
His eyes fill with tears recalling their conversation. “I am a father of four boys,” he says. “Three of them were born here; they don’t know anywhere else than Belfast. When they came here and saw the damage, my youngest son asked me, ‘Where are we originally from?’ because he felt he doesn’t belong here any more.
“This is my home, this is my children’s home and I am advising people all the time to stay here,” he says. “But now myself and everyone I know is thinking about leaving. I know of one big Muslim family of six children who left for London a few days ago. Their teenage daughter got a message from a pupil in the school, saying ‘I will kill you all’. Imagine.”
“All the Muslim community, they stay in their home. Even now, four weeks on, there is still no normal,” says Abdel. “It’s improved a little bit but they’re not coming back the way they did before.