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Attack on Narrow Water soldiers memorial near Warrenpoint

UUP Poppy wreaths and crosses have been damaged in the latest attackUUP
Poppy wreaths and crosses have been damaged in the latest attack

A memorial to 18 soldiers who were killed by the IRA during the Troubles has been vandalised again.

Poppy wreaths and crosses have been damaged at Narrow Water, just outside Warrenpoint, County Down, where the soldiers died in a double bomb attack in 1979.

The memorial has been vandalised at least five times since late 2017.

Police said the latest incident, which was reported at 13:35 BST on Sunday, was being treated as a hate crime.

It is believed the attack happened some time between 16:00 BST on Saturday and 12:30 BST on Sunday.

Ulster Unionist Party councillor David Taylor said the wreaths and crosses had been "desecrated".

"This attack is another despicable act, just like the many others which have occurred at the site of the memorial dedicated to the 18 soldiers murdered by the IRA on 27 August 1979," he said.

"I say to those who perpetrate these sickening acts, enough is enough.

"The families of the 18 murdered soldiers already endure enough heartache through losing their loved ones in such tragic circumstances without having their pain further compounded when incidents of this nature occur."

PSNI Supt Jane Humphries has appealed to anyone who has information or video footage of the attack to contact police.

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The roadside memorial was targeted in November 2017, July 2018, twice in September 2018 and again in October 2018.

Earlier this year, a lorry driver, Robert James McKeegan, 44, from Bleary, was jailed after he admitted vandalising the memorial on 4 October 2018.

The IRA attack at Narrow Water resulted in the highest death toll suffered by the Army on a single day in Northern Ireland.

The first bomb was planted under hay on a lorry at the side of the road.

When it exploded it killed six soldiers who had were travelling past in a four-tonne lorry.

As the injured were airlifted from the scene, a second device detonated killing 12 more soldiers.

The explosions happened just hours after the Queen's cousin, Lord Mountbatten, was killed in an IRA bomb attack on his boat at Mullaghmore in County Sligo in the Republic of Ireland.