RUC officers block the Orange parade

Stand-off at Ulster Marches

Around 200 RUC officers were in place in Bellaghy, County Londonderry, as tensions grew in the run-up to the parade. The first stage of the loyalist parade through the town passed off peacefully. Orangemen handed in a letter of protest when they reached police lines blocking them from marching through the main street to where nationalists had gathered to stage a demonstration at the other end.

Robert Overend, deputy grandmaster of the Orange Lodge in Northern Ireland, read out the letter to Northern Ireland Secretary, Mo Mowlam, which demanded the right of freedom of assembly and the right to parade.

The marchers then turned round and paraded back down the main street to their church half a mile away to hold another service. An hour later they returned, again marching up to the police line before turning back.

Nationalist protesters in Bellaghy

Jim Hasson, a spokesman for the nationalists, said the residents in Bellaghy were angry at the RUC's handling of the situation. He said the "rights of the nationalist people [had] been ignored", and the whole village was under curfew.

Mr Hasson complained that the Orange Order had refused talks about the parade. "The Orange Order keep saying they have rights but what are our rights?" he asked.

The RUC had imposed restrictions on both the marchers and the protesters.

In County Tyrone, nationalist residents of Mountfield blocked an Orange Order march through their village in sympathy. Police separated both sides. The Orange marchers accused the RUC of giving in to threats of violence from the nationalist community. A third Orange parade in Keady, County Armagh, also turned back when it reached police lines.

Tensions in Northern Ireland are already high, after the IRA killed two RUC officers last Monday and after Saturday's car bomb attack by loyalists paramilitaries in central Belfast.