TRIBUTES have been paid to a Northern Irish journalist killed in a terrorist attack in Derry.

Lyra McKee was shot in the head by dissident republicans during disturbances in the city on Thursday evening.

Detectives believe the violence was in response to an earlier search by officers.

Mobile phone footage appeared to show a masked gunman crouching down on the street in the Creggan estate and firing two shots with a handgun.

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McKee was standing near a police vehicle and was fatally wounded. She was taken to hospital by officers but later died.

Police have blamed the anti-peace process New IRA for the murder.

A vigil was held in the Creggan in McKee’s memory, organised by local residents who said they felt sad and angry.

The 29-year-old’s partner Sara Canning told the crowd that the killing was “barbaric”.

“Our hopes and dreams and all of her amazing potential was snuffed out by this single barbaric act,” she said.

“Victims and LGBTQI community are left without a tireless advocate and activist and it has left me without the love of my life, the woman I was planning to grow old with,” she added.

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“This cannot stand, Lyra’s death must not be in vain because her life was a shining light in everyone else’s life and her legacy will live on and the life that she has left behind.”

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald and DUP leader Arlene Foster both attended the vigil.

In a rare joint statement, they, along with Robin Swann from the UUP, Colum Eastwood of the SDLP, Naomi Long from the Alliance, and Clare Bailey of the Green Party, expressed their “condemnation in the strongest terms possible at the murder”.

It went on: “The murder of Lyra McKee is first and foremost a devastating loss for her grieving partner, family and friends, and our thoughts are with them at this awful time.

“Lyra’s murder was also an attack on all the people of this community, an attack on the peace and democratic processes.

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“It was a pointless and futile act to destroy the progress made over the last 20 years, which has the overwhelming support of people everywhere.

“We are united in rejecting those responsible for this heinous crime.

“They have no support in the community, must be brought to justice and should disband immediately.”

Prime Minister Theresa May said the killing was “shocking and senseless”.

The New IRA is a coalition of Republican groups opposed to the peace process. They recently claimed responsibility for a number of parcel bombs sent to London and Glasgow.

A statement on the website of Saoradh, a fringe political party associated with the New IRA thinking, blamed the death on “heavily armed crown forces”.

“The blame for last night lies squarely at the feet of the British crown forces, who sought to grab headlines and engineered confrontation with the community.

“During this attack on the community, a Republican volunteer attempted to defend people from the PSNI/RUC. Tragically a young journalist covering the events, Lyra McKee, was killed accidentally while standing behind armed crown force personnel and armoured vehicles.”

There was little sympathy for the group’s position. The local catholic priest Father Joseph Gormley comforted McKee’s family in hospital. He told BBC Radio Foyle that the community was stunned by the killing.

“Our parish is full of so many good people and these people come into our area and use us to carry out such vile acts. How dare they. How dare they,” he said.

“They have done it in this Holy Week. They have done it in a way that is totally, totally anti-Gospel and literally anti-Christ,” he said.

She added: “A bright light has been quenched and that plunges all of us into darkness.”

Deputy chief constable Stephen Martin: “Today is Good Friday and it’s a cruel twist in our history that 21 years ago the majority of people in Northern Ireland signed up to the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement yet here we are today mourning the loss of a talented young woman, a young journalist who was also a daughter, a sister and a partner.

“This is a dark day.”

McKee rose to prominence after publishing a blog called Letter to My 14-Year-Old Self in which she wrote about growing up gay in Belfast. It was turned into a short film.

In 2016 Forbes magazine named her one of the “30 under 30 in media”. She had recently signed a two-book deal with Faber & Faber.