Londonderry: Explosive device sent to hotel

A suspicious package delivered to a hotel in Londonderry contained a "viable" explosive device, police have said.

Army bomb experts were sent to the hotel at Ebrington Square in the city's Waterside after the package was discovered at about 15:20 GMT on Tuesday.

They carried out a controlled explosion on the device, which was later taken away for a forensic examination.

Det Supt Kearney of the Police Service of Northern Ireland said: "I condemn this reckless and targeted attack."

The detective said that "a number of people" were evacuated from the hotel, along with staff from neighbouring premises.

A Halloween funfair had been taking place a short distance away from the hotel.

It remained open during the security alert.

Justice Minister Naomi Long condemned the incident, calling it "abhorrent".

"The viable device was placed in the vicinity of families and young people celebrating Halloween, Long said.

"It was an utterly shameful and dangerous act and the people behind it have shown absolutely no regard to the community or businesses affected," she added.

She paid tribute to the police officers who responded to the incident, "once again putting themselves in harm's way to ensure the safety of the public".

SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan told BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme police officers acted swiftly and that his thoughts were with them, the hotel staff and the hotel guests who were impacted.

"This is extremely traumatic for staff and those staying at the hotel," Durkan said.

"This should be a positive week for Derry, with all the events going on with Halloween in the city, there is a lot of buzz, but this has certainly painted a less positive picture of this city.

"This is not representative of Derry and the vast majority of people in this city, who would, like me, completely reject this."

Julie Middleton, Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) assembly member for Foyle, told BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme on Wednesday that she was "deeply disturbed and disgusted".

"There is no excuse to leave a viable device anywhere at all, but in the middle of Ebrington Square, where you have people at their work, families out enjoying some half-term fun and tourists visiting and unfortunately this was designed to cause disruption and with any viable device, it was obviously designed to cause harm."

Middleton said many children would also be in the vicinity enjoying the fun fair.

"To think anyone would place something like this near our children, or anyone for that matter, is just deeply wrong."