A new human rights organisation has condemned three so-called punishment shootings in a loyalist area of north Belfast. Three men aged 17, 19 and 24 were found together near Highvale Gardens on the Highfield Estate, each suffering a single gunshot wound to the knee.
The wounds are understood not be to be life-threatening. Loyalist paramilitaries are being blamed for the "kneecappings".
A new Shankill-based organisation, the Philos Mediation Group, said the shootings called the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire into question.
