A model of refugees in a boat, placed on a bonfire in a pro-British town near Belfast, was set alight on Thursday night, weeks after migrants' homes were attacked nearby.

Authorities in Northern Ireland are investigating a bonfire that featured effigies of migrants in a boat and a banner reading “stop the boats’’ to determine whether it was a hate incident.

Hundreds of bonfires will be lit across Northern Ireland later ahead of the Orange Order ’s July 12 parades on Saturday. The traditional fires are lit ahead of the main date in the parading calendar of Protestant loyal orders, the Twelfth of July.