‘I was terrified’: Boy, 13, at moment Belfast brick attack narrowly missed his mother and sister

The attack took place at around 8.30pm last night, with a large rock smashing through a window in the living room of the Al Hamada house near Cliftonville Road.

The family have described how the stone was fortunately deflected by wooden planks inside the property, protecting the young mother – who was feeding her two-month-old baby at the time – from impact.

Sultan Al Hamada, 20, was at his business in south Belfast when the attack on his home took place.

He said: “Luckily the wooden plank was there and the stone couldn’t go through the window because my sister was feeding her baby next to it.

“It was a heavy stone and it would have gone through hard if it hadn’t been blocked by the wood.”

Sultan described this as the first time they had ever had any problems since moving to the area.

Abdu (13) lives in the house with his mother, younger brother and three sisters.

His father and older brother weren’t home, so he ran outside to see what had happened.

“I was sleeping and I heard the women screaming and I didn’t know what was going on, so I ran and opened the door. I thought maybe it was our neighbor whose gas broke or something,” he explained .

“But when I saw what happened, I was terrified. It was definitely a big man, it can’t be a small man because you can see the rock is huge.

His younger brother Haza, 10, who plays football for a local club, was also in bed when he was woken by the screams of his mother and sisters.

He said: “I heard my sister and mother screaming and I came out with my brother, he went first.”

It is believed that more than one suspect was on the scene when the attack on the property took place.

Police on the scene said they would be monitoring the area all night.

They confirmed they would try to identify the suspects from CCTV footage from neighboring houses.