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Victims of IRA violence have criticised the city of San Francisco for posthumously honouring Martin McGuinness for his "courageous service in the military".

The Certificate of Honour is the US equivalent to freedom of a city.

It also recognises the former IRA leader's role in the Northern Ireland peace process.

Mary Hamilton who was injured in the IRA bombing of Claudy in 1972 described the award as "disgusting."

Now an Ulster Unionist party councillor, the former deputy Mayor of Derry, whose brother-in-law George Hamilton was also shot and killed by the IRA in 1972, said she broke down when she heard about the award.

"I remember every day the Claudy bomb victims, blown to pieces at my feet, and my brother-in-law, shot in the back, and who left behind a four-year-old child and a wife and to think Martin McGuinness is being honoured," she told the Nolan Show.

Mrs Hamilton said she believed the Mayor of San Francisco, London Breed, who signed off on the award, had been ill-informed.

"It is disgusting what they have done," she said.

Ann Travers said she was "completely sickened" by the award to Mr McGuinness.

Her sister Mary was murdered by the IRA in Belfast in 1984. The target of the ambush was their father, Tom, a resident magistrate. He survived.

"There was nothing courageous about the IRA. As far as I am aware they were not a military organisation but a terrorist organisation.

"Martin McGuinness left behind as his legacy, people with a huge amount of hurt," she said.

Ms Travers has emailed the mayor of San Francisco asking her to reconsider the award. She said she has also invited her to visit victims of IRA violence.

Margaret Veitch, whose parents died in the IRA Enniskillen bombing, told the Belfast Telegraph the former deputy first minister, who died in 2017, had gone to his grave "an unrepentant terrorist".

"Terrorists are terrorists the world over, except in Northern Ireland where they are put into government and given awards," she said.

She added: "There's not another country that would tolerate it. I don't know what's wrong with people that terrorists are now being honoured. Will San Francisco now be giving a posthumous honour to Osama bin Laden?"

Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie, a retired Army captain, also reacted angrily.

He tweeted to the Democratic mayor of San Francisco: "I fought shoulder to shoulder with your country after the 9/11 terrorist attack. Yet you honour terrorists who butchered men, women and children in mine. #ShameOnYou."

Mr McGuinness died at the age of 66 in 2017.

He was second-in-command of the IRA in Derry at the time of Bloody Sunday,

In 1997, he became MP for Mid Ulster, by which time he was Sinn Fein's chief negotiator in the peace process.

By 2007, he was Northern Ireland's deputy first minister standing alongside First Minister Ian Paisley.

A Sinn Féin spokesman said the San Francisco award is a "welcome recognition of the life and legacy of Martin McGuinness".

"Martin McGuinness made a colossal contribution to the peace process, Irish unity and reconciliation.

"His remarkable life and legacy has been celebrated and recognised across the world," the spokesman said.