Several shootings linked to drug trafficking which took place in Brussels recently left one victim on the morning of Wednesday February 14. A person was killed at 6 a.m. in Saint-Gilles, a district where shots had already been fired the day before from a car which hit a passerby. Weapons were found in the vehicle, later spotted in Anderlecht, a neighboring town.
“Yesterday it was intimidation, today it’s an execution. We are in a territorial conflict between groups who want to control a neighborhood”commented the mayor of Saint-Gilles, Jean Spinette, who said “shocked, but not surprised”. This area of the capital is, in fact, described as a “drug drive-in”, where dealers have set up on doorsteps. According to local authorities, trafficking is now in the hands of organized crime and stems from a “national phenomenon”linked to massive drug trafficking through the port of Antwerp, in particular, as well as to the development of crack consumption.
Another shooting took place on Sunday February 11 a few hundred meters from Saint-Gilles, in the popular Marolles district. Two people were injured. At the beginning of February, a hostage-taking was avoided thanks to the intervention of janitors, injured by drug dealers.
According to Jean Spinette, traffickers now consider themselves untouchable in his town where, on Tuesday evening, residents gathered to express their fears and receive information. The mayor deplored the insufficient number of local police officers and recalled that he has long called for help from the federal police and the justice system, accused of releasing apprehended delinquents too quickly.
Investment promises made
A representative of the police present at Tuesday evening’s meeting, for his part, confided that the traffic problem in his area now seemed impossible to control. Many small groups engage in turf wars and increasingly use weapons to achieve their ends. The first two deaths linked to these settling of scores occurred in October 2023, in Brussels.
“The phenomenon of urban gangs produces more danger and deaths than terrorism. You have to take it head on”explained, in December 2023, Christos Doulkeridis, mayor of Ixelles, where a shooting left four victims. “We need to strengthen the police and justice, that’s what we’re trying to do”declared Paul Van Tigchelt, the Minister of Justice, on this occasion.
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