Around 2,000 protesters blocked a route into the Catholic area in a Northern Irish town that a contentious Protestant parade was due to walk down on Sunday morning, a march that has historically been a flashpoint of sectarian disputes.
Northern Ireland's Parades Commission on Friday permitted the Protestant Orange Order group to march along the Garvaghy Road, a Catholic enclave in the largely Protestant town of Portadown, overturning an almost 30-year ban on the route.
Crowds including Northern Ireland First Minister Michelle O'Neill of Irish nationalists Sinn Fein and the party's leader, Mary Lou McDonald, gathered on the road overnight after Belfast's High Court dismissed an application by residents to stop the parade early on Sunday morning.
"This is madness," McDonald told reporters shortly after 8 a.m. when the march was due to begin. "This, in fact, is primitive treatment of any community in the year 2026. It is intolerable, and it will not be tolerated.
"This is a dignified and united community, and they are absolutely determined that they and we will not be drawn back into the past."
McDonald and O'Neill called on the British government and police to intervene to put a stop to the parade. O'Neill said she had spoken to Britain's minister for the region and the Irish government.
British Prime Minister Andy Burnham called for calm on Sunday.
"I know it's a tense situation, we do appeal for calm on all sides. There have been big gains made in Northern Ireland and we don't want to see things go backwards," Burnham told the BBC. He said he had spoken to Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin on the matter on Saturday.
Police warn protesters committing criminal offense
Police vans parked nearby had earlier played out a warning that anyone taking part in the protest was committing a criminal offense.
A small group of Orange Order members wearing traditional silk orange sashes and black bowler hats gathered at another part of the town, a picture posted on X/Twitter by Democratic Unionist Party lawmaker Carla Lockhart, showed.
The Parades Commission's determination on Friday stipulated that a smaller-than-usual 35 people could take part in the march, that it should begin by 8 a.m. and finish by 9:30 a.m., and that no supporters or bands would be allowed.