GMANews.TV , News Report, Posted: Jun 25, 2010

A Filipino family in Belfast, Northern Ireland, has expressed fears for their safety after racist attacks in their Whiteabbey town on Tuesday left a part of their house and a Filipino neighbor’s car scorched.

The Philippine Embassy in London said Ishis Calungsod and his family were targeted in a racially motivated arson in their street, which involved the burning of a car owned by Arnel Verzonilla, another
Filipino.

Nobody was physically hurt in the attacks.

A report by Belfast Telegraph stated 30-year-old Calungsod and his wife were sleeping with their two children, aged four and six, when Verzonilla’s car, parked at the front door of their house in Fernagh
Avenue, went up in flames. Verzonilla lives in the same building several doors up.

Another car parked on the same street, owned by an Indian family, was likewise torched, the report said.

The report said the Calungsod family learned of the fire only when firefighters broke into their house to rescue them.

Local police have ruled the burning of the cars as racially motivated, following at least three similar incidents also in Belfast recorded a day before, based on the report.