Reuters reports:
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney was taken off stage by officials during a speech in Belfast on Friday after the event organiser said a suspicious device had been discovered in a hijacked van in the car park of the venue.
The van driver was ordered at gunpoint to drive to the venue in north Belfast, one of the event’s organisers told Reuters. Coveney was driven away from the venue in his government car after leaving the stage, a Reuters journalist at the scene said.
The BBC reports:
Mr Coveney said he was “saddened and frustrated someone has been attacked and victimised in this way.” An MP said it was understood the van had been loaded with “explosives or something purporting to be explosives.”
The SDLP’s Claire Hanna said the event had ended abruptly when the minister’s security detail ushered him from the building. The alert also disrupted a funeral at nearby Holy Cross Church, which was then held in the church carpark.
The Independent reports:
A spokesperson for Mr Coveney said: “The minister and team are safe, have been taken to a secure location and the PSNI are doing their work.” Local priest Fr Gary Donegan spoke at the event. He told BBC Radio Ulster that Mr Coveney was about five minutes into the speech when it was interrupted.
“I saw the close protection team, beckoning towards me. They turned around and said to me that someone had been hijacked at gunpoint and had driven a van with an alleged device into the ground and we need to get the minister out of there and get the place evacuated.”
BREAKING: A security alert in north Belfast has caused an emergency evacuation of an event involving Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney https://t.co/4cEE3SeAmK
— Belfast Telegraph (@BelTel) March 25, 2022
Chilling footage showing Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney being escorted from a peace-building event organised by the John and Pat Hume Foundation in the middle of his speech due to a bomb threat https://t.co/yBupty9oWE pic.twitter.com/ch0wWlDgzl
— Adam Payne (@adampayne26) March 25, 2022
In Belfast with @Humefoundation to honour John & Pat’s legacy of peace for all communities. Saddened & frustrated that someone has been attacked & victimised in this way and my thoughts are with him & his family. My thanks to @PoliceServiceNI https://t.co/bs9LvTKBHW
— Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) March 25, 2022