A man has been shot dead in the Brussels’ municipality of Anderlecht.
The incident at around 4 am on February 7 marked the fourth shooting in three days in the same municipality.
The latest occurred in Peterbos in Anderlecht, a known drugs-trade hotspot and a stone’s throw from the Clemenceau metro station, where two people fired several shots with Kalashnikov-style rifles on February 5.
“The circumstances are under further investigation and the investigating judge and the lab are coming to the scene,” said police spokeswoman Sarah Frederickx after the latest outrage.
A police patrol that happened to be in the area at the time reportedly found the alleged perpetrator, who has not been identified yet.
“You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that these shootings are connected,” claimed Fabrice Cumps, the Mayor of Anderlecht. “They are likely reprisals for the shots fired at Clemenceau. It’s a war between mafia gangs trying to control the territory.”
Anderlecht Alderman Bieke Comer told public radio: “Despite ongoing efforts to address the issue, a drug gang remains active in the Peterbos neighbourhood.
“Although many individuals have been arrested in the past, they somehow keep returning. It’s not over yet.”
In response to the recent shootings in Anderlecht and Saint-Josse-Ten-Noode, the capital’s police have enhanced security. As of February 7, patrols from the Brussels-Capital-Ixelles force will be deployed in Anderlecht and southern Brussels.
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
In their coalition agreement, the newly sworn-in Belgian Government has agreed to push through the so-called single police zone in Brussels.
Unity of command within the police has been a hot-button issue for years, with the Dutch-speaking community in Belgium insisting on it while local government in Brussels strongly against it.
Brussels’ mayors have opposed a single police zone, claiming it would reduce their control over local security, making it harder to address the specific needs of their communities.
Many others, though, have accused them of being motivated by the fear of losing political influence and power.
In 2018, the Minister-President of the Brussels Region travelled to the Brussels Days event in New York in a bid to restore the capital’s image in the US after then-US president Donald Trump had called it “a hellhole”.
“It’s ridiculous, Brussels has no security problem. I haven’t heard anyone say it and we have to stop repeating it. In reality, we are wrongly exporting a negative reputation. Brussels is not dangerous,” Vervoort said at the time in New York.
In 2024, a total of 89 shootings and related incidents, as well as nine deaths, were recorded by the Brussels prosecutor’s office.
At the end of the year, the CEO’s of three major banks derided what they called a lack of security in Brussels and around their headquarters.
They complained of open drugs use, prostitution, physical aggression and thefts and called for politicians on all levels to act urgently.
In the past, strong action on crime has been derided by Socialist and Green politicians, who said they were discriminatory in nature.
Brussels is in danger of drowning in its own filth while sinkholes erupt across the city and the organisation responsible for water and sewers in the European capital is on the verge of bankruptcy. https://t.co/Co6Lr4RFH9
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 19, 2024
