‘Everyone I know is thinking about leaving’: Belfast’s immigrant business owners rethink their futures

When Mohammed Idris’s car broke down last week, no taxi driver wanted to pick him up from outside his shop in Belfast.
It has been exactly four weeks since the Sudanese man’s cafe on Donegall Road was burned out during a weekend of unprecedented racist violence following an anti-immigration protest on a Saturday afternoon outside Belfast City Hall.
Despite dozens of arrests – the youngest rioter was just 11 – and unusually swift court appearances, the once busy ethnic grocery shops, halal shops and Turkish barbers dotted along the staunchly loyalist Sandy Row have only a trickle of lunchtime customers.
“People are scared,” says Idris. “They do not want to come out at all. It’s terrible.”
Today, the 49-year-old is on the phone in an upstairs office above the former Bash cafe renowned for its Ethiopian coffee served with popcorn in the Jebana-style service.
The electrical engineer, who worked on a Sudanese power plant, sought asylum in Ireland 16 years ago. He lived first in Sligo – “I’m a Sligo man,” he jokes – before moving to Belfast.
He leases a building on the corner of Donegall Road, close to Sandy Row, which houses a barbershop and a technology business offering IT support to refugee and migrant communities.
Union flags and loyalist paramilitary flags fly from lamp-posts in this working-class enclave in south Belfast close to the city centre and leafy university area.
“Before the attack, this building was very busy,” he says. “We help people transfer money and book online services for things like driving tests or buying tickets, photocopying, sending emails … we’re a multi service. Now, my customers phone me to see if it is safe to visit.
“Even the taxis do not want to come. I had to call three or four times to find a taxi as I had no car last week. When you say ‘Donegall Road, Sandy Row’, no one wants to come here.”
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Idris has deliberately removed the bright blue Bash cafe sign with its coffee logo and is planning to relocate to another part of the city.
On the Saturday afternoon his shop was attacked, a mob gathered outside and shouted his name.
“I was in my office when I heard ‘where’s Mohammed, where’s Mohammed?’ I looked out and saw all these people. I rang the police and was on the line for about 10-12 minutes. They advised me not to go down and lock myself in and to close the windows.
“There were people outside eating and I got customers into my kitchen. The attackers went away and came back at night-time. They were here from 6pm until 3am in the morning. It was all online.”
There have been 45 arrests and 35 people charged for race-related hate crimes, hate incidents and disorder linked to the weekend of August 3rd, the PSNI confirmed yesterday.
Earlier this week, a Belfast court heard that police in Northern Ireland were receiving daily reports of race hate incidents as a man appeared charged with rioting.
Fears are also mounting about migrant children returning to school, with a group of 400 Muslim women from across the North writing to Stormont Minister for Education Paul Givan expressing “deep concern” about their children’s safety.
Risk assessments are being carried out at Belfast schools close to the disorder, Mr Givan has confirmed.
For Idris, one of the most difficult moments of the past month was when his seven-year-old son saw the burned-out remains of the cafe.
His eyes fill with tears recalling their conversation. “I am a father of four boys,” he says. “Three of them were born here; they don’t know anywhere else than Belfast. When they came here and saw the damage, my youngest son asked me, ‘Where are we originally from?’ because he felt he doesn’t belong here any more.
“It’s the first time he’s ever said that.”
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Since the attack, Idris has received thousands of emails of support from as far away as Canada and the US.
He is uncertain if he will stay in Northern Ireland; this is the third time he has been targeted in the past decade.
“This is my home, this is my children’s home and I am advising people all the time to stay here,” he says. “But now myself and everyone I know is thinking about leaving. I know of one big Muslim family of six children who left for London a few days ago. Their teenage daughter got a message from a pupil in the school, saying ‘I will kill you all’. Imagine.”
Latest figures from the PSNI and the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) show that race hate crimes are at an all-time high; 1,411 racist incidents were recorded in the year to end of June 2024, 144 higher than for the previous 12 months – and the highest since police records for race incidents began in 2004.
Almost half of recorded race-hate incidents and crimes were in Belfast.
A halal food shop owner who has run a successful business close to Sandy Row for the past seven years no longer feels safe. Sudanese accountant Muhammed Abdel employs six people in his supermarket and was considering opening a second shop.
The father of five, who lives in Lisburn, also fears for his children after his six-year-old son told him he was worried about going to school after the riots.
“All the Muslim community, they stay in their home. Even now, four weeks on, there is still no normal,” says Abdel. “It’s improved a little bit but they’re not coming back the way they did before.
“I was on holiday during the riots and my kids weren’t here but they saw it online. My daughter is studying medicine at Queen’s and she is okay. But my youngest son is not; he is afraid.”
On Botanic Avenue – where Muslim-owned restaurants were targeted – there are small signs of hope.
Solar-powered fairy lights are draped along Greek, Kurdish, Vietnamese and Nepalese restaurants by an arts group for the launch of the Open Botanic festival next month.
Shattered glass in a window of a Turkish barbershop vandalised by rioters is the only visual reminder of the attacks.
One immigrant business owner offers us food but is too afraid to give his name; he has lived in Belfast for 20 years but does not know if he will stay.
“We’ve lost regular customers; they’re too afraid to come,” he says. “They’re scared it will happen again.
“At the moment I will stay here but if there is more trouble, we will close. I can’t argue with these people or fight back. If they want money, I will give them money. The police can’t protect you, and if the police can’t protect then who is going to protect you?”
Back at the Bash cafe building later that afternoon, the upstairs barber’s and computer room are beginning to fill up. Mohammed Idris is laughing with a customer.
“I’ve been working in this business for 10 years now,” he says. “I have people coming to me from all over; they have become my friends.
“I love this island of Ireland but unfortunately it’s not going well. It is very sad.”