DERRY, Northern Ireland — On a cold, rainy night last January, a group of masked men abducted a 15-year-old boy from his home in Creggan, Northern Ireland, threw him into the back of a van and took him to a dark alleyway. There, they pinned him against a shuttered storefront and shot him in the legs until he collapsed. The men were linked to one of the region’s main militant groups, the New Irish Republican Army. “They beat me up, I couldn’t breathe and then bang, bang, bang, bang. Violence in Northern Ireland has fallen sharply since the 1998 Good Friday agreement formally ended a bloody 30-year guerrilla war between mostly Catholic republicans, seeking unification with the Republic of Ireland, and predominantly Protestant loyalists and unionists, who favor remaining in the United Kingdom.

Source: New York Times December 16, 2019 15:52 UTC