The Ballymurphy Massacre

Massacres leave deep scars in the victims' families but also in the entire society.

Each country unfortunately has its own.

As Italian, I am thinking to the Ustica Massacre on the 27th of June 1980, to the Bologna Massacre of the 2nd of August 1980 ...

And also Northern Ireland has its own....

The Ballymurphy Massacre began on the morning of Monday 9 August 1971. On that day the British Government introduced the so-called Interment Without Trial, within the Operation Demetrius: the plan was to arrest and imprison without charge or trial anyone suspected to belong to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

In a period on three days, 600 British soldiers entered the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast and hundreds of people were taken, most of them innocent, unarmed civilians. 11 of them were killed during these three days by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment. Amongst them, there was a 45 year old mother of eight children.

According to the families of the victims no investigations were carried out and no member of the British Army was held to account.

The same regiment went months later in Derry (30 January 1972) and it is considered responsible of similar events, known as Bloody Sunday killings.



Divis Street, Belfast 2015

The Ballymurphy Massacre 

Royal Television Society Award Winning Documentary 2013
FFresh Best Documentary 2013
NAHEMI Best in Festival 2013