History of Derry of the Troubles". On Sunday January 30, 1972, 13 unarmed civilians were shot dead by British paratroopers during a civil rights march in the Bogside area. Another 13 were wounded and one further man later died of his wounds. This event came to be known as Bloody Sunday. Because of these events, certain areas of Derry produced strong support for republican paramilitaries. Up to 1972, both the Provisional Irish Republican Army and Official IRA operated in the city. However, in 1972 the OIRA called a ceasefire following their unpopular killing a local 18-year-old who was on leave from the British
Battle of the Bogside to the border, they restricted their activities to providing medical care for the injured. By 14 August, the rioting in the Bogside had reached a critical point. Almost the entire community there had been mobilised by this point, many galvanised by false rumours that St Eugene's Cathedral had been attacked by the police. The police were also beginning to use firearms. Two rioters were shot and injured in Great James Street. The B-Specials, a reserve quasi-military, mostly Protestant police force with no training in crowd control, were called up and sent to Derry, provoking fears of a massacre on the