Hundreds of people gathered on the streets of Ballymena in Northern Ireland on Wednesday, facing police armed with riot shields and water cannon on the third night of disorder in the town.

The crowds eventually dispersed without a repeat of the chaotic scenes from the previous two nights, when houses and businesses were torched and 32 police officers were injured.

The violence erupted in the town after the arrest of two teenagers accused of attempting to rape a teenage girl. The pair appeared Monday in court, where they asked for a Romanian interpreter.

Police have not confirmed the ethnicity of the teenagers, who remain in custody, but areas attacked on Monday and Tuesday included neighbourhoods where Romanian migrants live.

Ministers from every party in the province’s power-sharing executive strongly condemned “the racially motivated violence witnessed in recent days”.

Residents had been “terrorised” and police injured, they said in Wednesday’s joint statement, urging people to reject the “divisive” agenda being pushed by a “destructive” minority.

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In response to what they termed “racist thuggery”, police deployed riot officers with dogs and have asked forces in England and Wales for help quelling the unrest.

On Wednesday, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer called the unrest in Ballymena “mindless violence”.

About 20 miles (32 kilometres) southeast of the town, masked men set a leisure centre in Larne on fire, local media reported. The centre was temporarily sheltering people from Ballymena who had been evacuated.

People living in Ballymena described “terrifying” scenes in which attackers had targeted “foreigners” over the previous days.

Some people fixed signs to their houses indicating they were Filipino residents, or hung up British flags.

Northern Ireland’s First Minister Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Fein vice president, called the violence “abhorrent”.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said in a statement that its officers “came under sustained attack over a number of hours with multiple petrol bombs, heavy masonry, bricks and fireworks in their direction”.

Some of the injured officers required hospital treatment.

Police Assistant Chief Constable Ryan Henderson on Tuesday denounced the violence as “racist thuggery” and said it was “clearly racially motivated and targeted at our minority ethnic community and police”.