Mass anti-immigration protests have been planned in the Northern Irish capital in response

Northern Irish police have arrested a Sudanese asylum seeker over a brutal stabbing attack in Belfast on Monday. Graphic video footage showed locals intervening as the attacker plunged a kitchen knife into his victim's neck.

The attacker, who is in his 30s, was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) said on Tuesday. His victim, who is in his 40s, suffered stab wounds to his back, face, and eyes, and has been hospitalized in serious condition.

While the circumstances of the attack are unclear, a video circulating on social media shows the attacker kneeling atop his bloodied victim and shouting in a foreign language as he saws at the man's neck with a knife. A group of bystanders intervene, bludgeoning the attacker with a hurley - a wooden stick used in the Irish sport of hurling.

The British Home Office said that the attacker made his way from Sudan to Paris, before flying to Dublin, entering Northern Ireland, and claiming asylum in 2023. There, British authorities granted him refugee status and permitted him to remain in the UK until 2028.

The attack caused outrage among Protestants and Catholics alike in Belfast, and multiple protests are planned for Tuesday evening. Politicians and the PSNI have appealed for calm while the case is investigated, and Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has promised that the suspect will be deported if found guilty.

Nigel Farage's Reform UK party has described the attack as "a direct result of treacherous Tory and Labour immigration policy," and called for a ban on visas for Sudanese nationals. Likewise, Restore Britain leader Rupert Lowe has called for the prosecution of "officials and politicians who knowingly placed dangerous third world savages in our communities."

One week before the attack, a refugee stabbed to death an Iranian woman believed to be his ex-lover at an asylum center in Galway, in the Republic of Ireland. Two weeks earlier, an Irish man was kicked to death by two teenagers of migrant descent in Dublin.

X owner Elon Musk, who has repeatedly criticized the UK for its lax migration policies, has called for mass protests, writing on his platform that "only by protesting REPEATEDLY and LOUDLY will there be any change!!"