- DUBLIN: Police and politicians say a Catholic elementary school has been evacuated in Northern Ireland after an 8-year-old boy found a suspected pipebomb in the school yard and gave it to a teacher.
British Army explosives experts are examining the suspicious object Monday at St. Comgall's Primary School in Ballymena but have not confirmed if it is a real bomb.
About 400 children aged 4 to 11 have been evacuated to a Catholic Church hall.
No group claimed responsibility. Ballymena is a predominantly Protestant town that has suffered from sectarian attacks against its Catholic minority.
The town's police commander, Simon Walls, suggested the alert involved a real bomb. He said it was "by sheer good fortune that we are not dealing with a severely injured child right now."