Sectarian violence in north Belfast, which a senior police officer has described as the worst the city has seen since the hunger strikes of 1981, will result in deaths if allowed to continue, politicians have cautioned.
The warnings followed a night of violence in the Limestone Road area that saw several shots fired at police and Protestant residents, and Catholic homes attacked with pipe bombs.
A 19-year-old man was admitted to a Belfast hospital with gunshot wounds to his left leg and right hand. The attack happened in the loyalist Mount Vernon area.
Unionists have blamed the IRA for the shootings while Sinn FΘin maintains that the loyalist Ulster Defence Association (UDA) are behind the unrest.
About 25 shots were fired at a group of people standing outside a house at the Protestant end of Hallidays Road, shortly after 9 p.m on Monday. A two-year-old child and her 51-year-old grandmother who were in the house at the time escaped injury.
Earlier, a police patrol had come under fire when it was called to investigate a report of a suspect bomb in the back yard of a house in Duncairn Gardens. No one was injured. In both cases the shots came from nationalist areas.
Loyalists have been blamed for a series of bomb attacks which followed the shootings. A blast bomb was thrown into the back of a house in Newington Street, while two others were thrown at Catholic homes a short distance away at Parkside Gardens.
Mr Alban Maginnis, SDLP MLA for the area, said people from both sides have had narrow escapes. "As these sectarian attacks further escalate the threat to lives increases. I am dreading hearing that someone has lost their life."
Mr Nigel Dodds, DUP MP for north Belfast, also said he feared someone would be killed "unless common sense and calm is restored". He called on the Government to review the IRA ceasefire in the wake of the shootings.
"It has been clear for some time that the IRA are busy orchestrating the violence in north Belfast ... It is time that the Secretary of State investigated the IRA ceasefire as a matter or urgency," he said.
Sinn FΘin accused Mr Dodds of hypocrisy for making no mention of the UDA's involvement in the violence. Party chairman Mr Mitchel McLaughlin said Mr Dodds had never addressed the loyalist attacks nor called for a review of the UDA ceasefire.
Meanwhile, Asst Chief Constable Alan McQuillan said the street disturbances had been among the worst in Belfast since 1981. "We have had a gradual escalation of the use of guns on both sides and obviously that is of great concern to us," he said.
The RUC Chief Constable said it was too early to determine if paramilitary organisations were behind Monday's attacks.
There was ample evidence that UDA members were engaged in violence but it was up to the Northern Secretary to decide if the organisation as a whole had abandoned its ceasefire, he said.