A number of people have escaped injury in pipe bomb attacks on houses in east Belfast.

Two devices were thrown into the nationalist Bryson Court area of the Short Strand on Monday night.

Slight damage was caused to a wooden fence and the glass door of a house.

It was the third time since July that one of the homes had been targeted.

Martina McGuigan and her family have lived in the house for 10 years, but said she had now had enough.

"They have actually got me to move now, I'm not staying here anymore," she said.

"I'll not get the kids back in. The kids had to go to family last night.

"Hopefully the Housing Executive will get me somewhere else."

The police said the pipe bombs had been taken away for forensic examination.

Ulster Unionist assembly member Sir Reg Empey condemned the attacks.

"This type of action is totally unacceptable. Those who take part in such attacks are putting lives at risk," he said.

"After the relative calm in the area in recent weeks, it would be tragic if we were to see a return to violence on our streets."

Tensions

East Belfast Democratic Unionist Party councillor Robin Newton said the attacks did nothing to "dampen tensions in east Belfast".

"If loyalists carried this out it is wrong and should not have happened," he said.

"The people who suffer are the innocent who live in close proximity to the interface wall."

Sinn Fein councillor Joe O'Donnell said the attacks sent out a clear picture of how the community was "slowly being destroyed, day by day, week by week, month by month".

He added: "I think that is the aim of the people behind this. But what I would say today is: 'They are not going to be successful'."