Deputy FM briefed on situation for people from NI in Middle East

Deputy FM briefed on situation for people from NI in Middle East 10 minutes ago Share Save Bernie Allen and Michael Fitzpatrick , BBC News NI Share Save The deputy first minister has attended a briefing from senior UK government security advisers about the situation in the Middle East. Emma Little-Pengelly attended the meeting virtually alongside the first ministers of Scotland and Wales and said she was briefed about the issues facing people from Northern Ireland who live in the region. The United States and Israel launched a large-scale attack on Iran on Saturday morning, followed by retaliatory strikes by Iran on Israel and other locations - including in Bahrain, where the US has a naval base. Little-Pengelly said First Minister Michelle O'Neill, of Sinn Féin, was invited to the briefing but did not attend and she did not know why. BBC News NI has contacted Sinn Féin and the Executive Office for comment. Little-Pengelly said there were many people from across Northern Ireland who would be apprehensive about their loved ones living in the Middle East. She said she understood a registration scheme was likely to be set up for UK citizens living there and appealed for anyone eligible to take it up. "There are many people across the UK that are in the region. I think it's estimated there's around 100,000 UK citizens living and working and visiting in the wider region as well," the Democratic Unionist Party assembly member said. "There's a lot of families, a lot of ones here at home that will be very worried about them." "We want to do everything that we can to make sure our citizens in the Middle East region are safe." Little-Pengelly said she would continue to work closely with the UK government. What have other politicians said? Sinn Féin's foreign affairs spokesperson Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire condemned the US and Israeli attacks on Iran as a dangerous and reckless act of aggression that risked plunging the region into wider war. The TD (member of the lower house of Ir...