London: The killing of three girls at a summer dance class in England a year ago by a teenager misidentified as a migrant triggered days of street violence directed at newcomers and minorities.
In the aftermath, communities came together to clear up the physical damage — but repairing the country’s social fabric is harder. Experts and community groups warn that the mix of anger, fear, misinformation and political agitators that fuelled the violence remains. In recent weeks, it has bubbled over again on the streets of Epping, near London.
“Given a trigger event, none of the conditions of what happened last year have gone away,” said Sunder Katwala of British
Future, a think tank that looks at issues including integration and national identity. He said there is a “tense and quite febrile atmosphere” in some parts of the country.
A solemn anniversary
Three minutes of silence will be held on Tuesday in the seaside town of Southport in northwest England, where the stabbing attack
eft three girls under 10 dead and eight children and two adults wounded.
Over the following days, violence erupted in Southport and across England, driven partly by online misinformation saying the attacker was a migrant who had arrived in the UK by small boat.
Because of British contempt for court and privacy laws, authorities were initially slow to disclose
the suspect’s identity: Axel Rudakubana, a British-born 17-year-old obsessed with violence. He later pleaded guilty to murder and is serving a life sentence.