Another armed clash took place in the early hours of Friday, this time in the Peterbos neighbourhood of Anderlecht. An as-yet unidentified man was shot dead, police spokeswoman Sarah Frederickx confirmed. This follows shootings on Wednesday evening and Thursday (February 6th and 7th)—two of which occurred in the Anderlecht and one in the Saint-Josse districts of Brussels.
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| Image Credit: HATIM KAGHAT / Contributor / Getty |
As we reported earlier, Brussels police still appear clueless as to the identity of the perpetrators, and have yet to establish whether the various shootouts are linked. What is now quite obvious, however, is that the street violence is gang-related—most likely a showdown between drug cartels, as indicated by the chief prosecutor of Belgium.
On Thursday afternoon, the mayors of the 19 Brussels districts held an emergency meeting to work out a joint response to the problem of what Belgian L’Echo called “how to protect the Belgian capital.” The mayors came up with the solution—already employed on new year’s eve last year and during the visit of Pope Francis in September 2024—that the nine police precincts of Brussels would be placed under a single command temporarily, hoping that this would enable a more effective and faster investigation.
RTL info also reported that a suspect in one of the shootings has been apprehended and interrogated on Thursday, and that weapons have been seized during a house search. To date, authorities have declined to confirm this information.
Mayor Philippe Close, head of the Mayors’ Council of Brussels, is quoted in the Belgian press as stating that the people of the city “expect immediate and concrete solutions.” Well, indeed. Not to mention that the shocking fact that the self-described capital of Europe is beginning to resemble Mogadishu (or rather—absurdly but tellingly enough, —Malmö in Sweden) still does not appear to be at the centre of the discourse. The Belgian authorities are concentrating on the (latest) crisis at hand, without much soul-searching for the time being as to how what has been happening is even possible.
По материалам: http://www.planet-today.com/2025/02/fourth-brussels-shooting-in-72-hours.html