2,000 protesters expected at G8 summit

The British police expect 2,000 protesters at the G8 summit in Northern Ireland tonight as leaders of the group meet in the border town of Enniskillen to discuss the Syrian situation, free US-European Union trade and tax evasion.

Police commanders in Northern Ireland said they expect the number of officers at the lakeside town to outnumber the protesters by thousands as around 8,000 officers remain high on alert in the area.

The two-day summit will begin in a few hours in a golf resort peninsula near the town and the police have already banned all boats from entering the six-mile vicinity of the location.

A range of anti-war, anti-capitalist, anti-globalization and anti-tax evasion groups plan to march from the town of Enniskillen to the imposing four-mile steel fence surrounding the Lough Erne golf resort on Monday night.

The fence is further enclosed by several miles of razor wire while the vicinity of the golf resort will also be patrolled by boast-based police units.

The police had initially estimated that the summit will face around 10,000 demonstrators but Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay, who is leading the G8 security operation, said t he figure is now cut to around 2,000.

The police have also deployed several mobile water cannons around the summit venue while they have made 260 extra prison cells available in the nearby city of Omagh and in the Northern Irish capital of Belfast to contain a likely surge in detentions.

Meanwhile, sixteen judges will be on standby during the summit to hold summary hearings for arrested demonstrators.