A shooting at a bar in Saint-Gilles, Southern Brussels, left two dead and three injured, two of whom are currently fighting for their lives.
The attack happened between 1am and 2am on June 27 in the Rue de’l Argonne, a stone’s throw from the Brussels-South railway station.
Two people on a scooter are said to have driven by the bar and opened fire on those sitting on the terrace.
Belgian media reported that a man and a women died on the spot.
Two other victims are in critical condition while a third suffered minor injuries.
Brussels South police said no arrests have yet been made but the scooter ridden by the suspects has been found.
A sharp rise in crime around the Brussels-Midi train station has gained public attention in Belgium after a video of a family left stranded there for a night went viral. https://t.co/ZyAnOzm0hI
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) July 28, 2023
The Astoria café bar where the shooting took place has been attacked before. In April, Le Mboa, a Cameroonian restaurant in the same street came under gunfire and was then set alight together with a car.
The Rue de l’Argonne in Saint-Gilles has become a notorious area for open drug dealing.
In February, four separate shootings in a short space of time around Saint-Gilles left one man dead.
Saint-Gilles Socialist Party Mayor Jean Spinette told La Première radio station at the time that drug dealers had “taken the city hostage”.
He said rival gangs often used such “terror techniques”.
Other areas of Brussels have also seen a rise in violent crime. On April 28, a man was shot in the head on the terrace of a café in the rue Joseph Brand in Schaerbeek. He later died of his wounds.
In October 2023, the city was also hit by an Islamist terror attack in which two died, while in March Belgian police arrested teenage terror suspects who allegedly aimed to strike in the heart of Brussels.
The rise in violent crime led Euro MPs to sign an open letter in February to Belgian interior minister Annelies Verlinden and Brussels Minister-President of the Brussels-Capital Region Rudi Vervoort. The MEPs expressed their “deepest concerns on the deteriorating security situation in Brussels”.
In the document, they demanded “swift action” so people “in the capital of the EU feel safe and secure”.
The latest deadly shooting comes just days after triumphant messaging by the public prosecutor following a major anti-narcotics operation in Brussels, which resulted in the arrests of 12 people suspected of being connected to a Marseille-based crime syndicate.
Drug violence is overtaking the Belgian capital, and police admit they are powerless to stop it. https://t.co/0GkysXrQ42
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 3, 2023
