A shellshocked community on Wednesday began to pick through the wreckage of riots that brought destruction to their Belfast street.

Families were forced to cower or flee as masked and hooded rioters ransacked homes and torched cars belonging to 'foreigners' on Tuesday night.

The flames from burning cars in the tightly packed street spread quickly, setting at least three terraced houses alight.

Rioters had targeted Lendrick Street – a Loyalist area in the east of the city, where the kerb stones are painted red, white and blue – because of the number of migrants who have moved there in recent years.

The arrest of a Sudanese migrant in North Belfast, two miles away, following a stabbing on Monday night, has left the city on edge and facing further unrest.

Lendrick Street was one of the worst-affected areas in the city. Crowds gathered shortly before nightfall and soon lit up the darkening sky with their devastation.

A two-month-old baby was among those rescued from the violence, the head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland revealed.

Chief Constable Jon Boutcher told BBC's Good Morning Ulster: 'Last night we rescued so many families.

'Taking families – a baby as young as two months – out of their address to safety, taking them to police stations.

'These weren't just families from ethnic minority communities; these were families from across communities that were caught up in this vile behaviour last night.

'There is absolutely no excuse for it.'

On Wednesday, along with the shells of three burnt-out cars, glass and blackened debris were strewn across the street. Broken windows bore the proof of the mob violence.

In one home said to belong to a Polish resident, the living room had been trashed, with chairs hurled around the interior and a desk overturned.

At one point, rioters were said to have removed a small sofa and burnt it on a barricade at the bottom of the street.

Jamie Corrie, who has lived on Lendrick Street for 13 years, watched his home burn. His neighbours on either side are understood to be originally from Eastern Europe.

Gangs set alight two cars outside his house. One, a white MG, had been tipped on to its side before being torched.

The flames set fire to Jamie's home. He told the Daily Mail: 'Standing there watching your house get burnt, that's a feeling I'll never get over.

'And what does this resolve? What does this actually do? Burning cars, wrecking your own community, and now one of their own has just lost their home.'

A neighbour across the street, who only gave his name as Ryan, watched it all unfold. He said: 'These weren't just youths with their hoods up, some were fully grown men. They targeted this street because it's been filled up with foreigners.

'They must have been watching before, because they were only targeting houses where British people weren't living. The cars that went up belonged to foreigners. On both sides of Jamie's house are Eastern Europeans.

'Some of the rioters were carrying bats, metal bars and other weapons. When they set fire to a car, the crowd cheered.

'The police arrived and were banging on people's doors with truncheons, telling them to get out. At one point, I thought the whole street was going to go up.'

In another burnt house further down the street, an exhausted and distressed-looking mother was collecting some of her belongings from her home.

She had been forced to flee in the night to her sister's when her home caught alight, and had returned briefly this morning.

In a house a few doors down, a Ukrainian family were weighing up the damage to their home, parts of which had also been damaged by fire and smoke.

The front door had been completely destroyed. The mother said simply: 'This is not good.'

Other residents told how they were forced to cower in their homes as the mob ran amok. One woman, originally from Central Africa, said: 'It was terrifying.

'I had a quick peek and saw a lot of men with hoods over their heads and with their faces masked walking down the street and setting cars on fire.

'I could also hear my neighbours' doors being kicked in. I was scared they'd come for me.

'Eventually, the police made me leave because they said there was a risk of a gas explosion.

'The Sudanese migrant accused of stabbing the man in North Belfast doesn't represent all people from Africa. I was as horrified by that incident as everyone else.

'I'm a Christian woman, I work and pay taxes. It's unfair that people who are not from Belfast originally should be targeted.

'I hoped Belfast would be a safe place to live, but now I'm not sure. I hope there is no more violence... but I'm worried that there will be.'

Another woman said her Muslim neighbour across the street had been targeted. She said: 'They were kicking her door and putting her windows through.

'She's a lovely wee lady. It's awful that she was targeted. Other homes belonging to people not born here were damaged as some sort of revenge. It's not right.

'I dared not look out my window for fear of being the next victim.

'I've been here all my life, but I was crouching down by my bed in terror thinking my house was the next to be smashed up.'

Pastor Jack McKee, at one such scene on Crumlin Road, in the city's north, told BBC News that residents were being hounded from their homes 'because they're black'. In the lower Newtownards Road area, 100 masked men went down the street, kicking in doors and smashing windows, saying they were 'getting the foreigners out'.

Two Ugandan women who work as carers were trapped in their home after it was firebombed. With the mob in the street, the pair said emergency services told them to put on their uniforms and stay upstairs.

They only fled when Pastor McKee begged rioters to give him 'ten minutes to get these women out'.

'It was so, so, so terrifying,' Sumayah Nakazibwe, 35, told The Times. She came to the UK three years ago and is studying for a diploma in adult health while working full-time as a care assistant.