// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Fear and fallout three months on from Northern Ireland's race riots
Crowds clashed with police in parts of Belfast during the riots earlier this year
Daylight is still extending across the summer evening sky over Belfast when Maria looks out the window of the house she shares with her two teenage daughters and sees people across the road putting on balaclavas.
It is Tuesday 9 June and parts of Northern Ireland are engulfed in violence.
Buses are being hijacked and set on fire, with water cannon deployed by police to quell rioters, and people targeted because of the colour of their skin – these scenes will all be broadcast around the world over the next 48 hours.
Maria has lived peacefully in her home in a loyalist area of east Belfast for two years. Until now.
"I just panicked. I started to fill buckets of water. I even filled my [bath] tub," she said.
"I thought: 'If a fire starts, how do I get out of this?'"
A Glider bus was set on fire in east Belfast during the trouble
Henry, who has lived in Belfast for a year after leaving his home in Nigeria, remembers the night as "all of a sudden you're getting a hint that you're a stranger".
"How would I put it? It's like suddenly you see lots of lions surrounding the sheep.