The RUC has confirmed that a shooting at an interface in north Belfast was carried out by a loyalist gunman who scaled the peaceline for the attack.
Tensions continued to build in the north of the city, and British army bomb-disposal experts yesterday made safe a pipe-bomb found behind a house on Alliance Avenue. Sectarian pickets were kept on a Catholic primary school.
A 31-year-old Catholic man suffered bruising when a bullet ricocheted through a window frame and hit him in the back early yesterday. He was in a house in the Oldpark area.
It appears the loyalist gunman used a ladder to climb the peaceline at Southport Court to fire a single shot at people in the house. A 15-year-old boy who lives there saw the incident.
The Sinn Fein Assembly member, Mr Gerry Kelly, accused the UDA of orchestrating the recent violence. He said the gun attack was part of a loyalist organisation's campaign against Catholics.
The SDLP councillor for Oldpark, Mr Martin Morgan, said the attack represented naked sectarianism. "The atmosphere is tense. People are paralysed with fear but they are also extremely angry that they are being held to ransom by thugs."
On Tuesday evening Protestant residents blocked the Oldpark Road for an hour to protest against sectarian attacks on their homes by nationalists. About 100 people called for the RUC to give them increased protection and to extend the peaceline to protect their homes.
Efforts to end the stand-off between Catholic parents and Protestant residents at a girls' primary school in the Ardoyne have stalled, with Protestants insisting wider sectarian problems in the community must be addressed while the parents say they are "amateurs" and cannot negotiate on wider tensions.
A statement from the Protestant Concerned Residents of the Upper Ardoyne group said they were "bitterly disappointed" the Catholic parents were "seeking to force the issue daily" by walking their children to police lines.
Parents were again refused access to the front entrance of Holy Cross Primary School yesterday because of the picket.
Mr Gerald McCabe, one of the parents, said they feared the stand-off could evolve into another Drumcree-style situation. "We are wondering what way they are thinking," he said. However, parents were still open to talks.
A house in Belfast city centre lived in by two women, one Danish and one Italian, was petrol-bombed early yesterday. Police are still investigating a motive for the attack on the house in the Peter's Hill area.