A mural in Orlando, Florida, honoring murdered Northern Ireland journalist Lyra McKee has been defaced with a swastika and anti-LGBTQ+ graffiti.
According to a report in The Guardian it was one of three artworks vandalized this week at the Zebra Youth Center, which provides services to LGBTQ+ people in the city.
According to the report, Anna Vishkaee Eskamani, a member of the Florida House of Representatives, called the defacement “absolutely disgusting” and said authorities would seek to identify and hold to account those responsible.
McKee, a journalist, author and gay activist, was shot dead by a dissident republican gunman while observing a riot in Derry in April 2019. She was 29.
The youth center commissioned the mural later that year to honor McKee, who had visited Orlando in 2017 after a gun attack on a gay nightclub in the city that left 49 people dead.
The mural showed McKee framed by a heart and a quote from one of her essays: “Keep hanging on, kid. It’s worth it. I love you.”
