Despairing racist attack victims moving out
AN east Belfast couple who were targeted in a racist attack are packing up to leave their home, saying they have had no support from the authorities since being targeted.
The family’s car was torched by thugs last Sunday
Rosmund Prah said she felt as if her family had been abandoned.
“Nobody from Stormont has been here,” she told the BBC.
“Not even the social services. We even have disabled children here. But nobody has come.
“It tells me that nobody really cares about me because I am black.”
Her partner Chris Edmund said that Victims Support had not proven useful.
“I phoned Victims Support — the number the police had advised me to phone. They weren’t very helpful. They said they hadn’t got an appointment for the next three weeks,” he said.
The couple are now moving out of the home they have lived in for seven years and into rented accommodation.
It will mean taking one of their children out of school, disrupting his education.
“One of the boys goes to the local school just around the corner and he loves it, but it looks as if we will have to move him out of the school,” Rosmund said.
“It is really pathetic. All the children are broken because they have to leave all their friends.
The Executive Office said: “Everyone, regardless of racial, ethnic or religious background is entitled to live their lives free from fear.”
The BBC also reported that Victims Support had undertaken to give the family priority treatment because of the racially aggravated nature of the attack against them.