Bloody Sunday (1972)
Bloody Sunday — sometimes called the Bogside Massacre — was an incident on 30 January 1972 in the Bogside area of Derry, Northern Ireland, in which twenty-six unarmed civil rights protesters or bystanders were shot by the British Army Parachute Regiment during a Civil Rights Association march. Thirteen men, seven of whom were teenagers, died immediately or soon after. The death of another man four and a half months later was attributed to the injuries he received on that day. Two protesters were injured when they were run down by army vehicles.
The Saville Inquiry Report
The report of the Saville Inquiry, published on 15 June 2010 some 38 years after the events and which has been accepted by the British government, found that all of those shot were unarmed, and that the killings were "unjustified and unjustifiable." Five of those wounded were shot in the back.
Detailing 5,000 pages of evidence taken over 12 years of hearings, The Saville Report concluded that:
- none of the 14 dead was carrying a gun,
- no warnings were given,
- no soldiers were under threat
- the troops were the first to open fire
The Saville Reports is represents an official declaration of innocence for the victims of the biggest British military killing of UK civilians in their own country since the Peterloo massacre in 1819. The deaths propelled a generation of nationalists into the Provisional IRA.
