Shootings in Brussels: Molenbeek and Schaerbeek cases on the rise

Another shooting took place in Brussels, this time at Masui street in the municipality of Schaerbeek on Saturday evening, April 23. According to the Brussels police, it is still unclear if anyone was injured.

“The Brussels public prosecutor’s office has been informed and the forensic laboratory went to the scene to make the necessary findings,” the police told the Belga News Agency.

At around 19:30, the police received several calls from local residents who had heard gunshots. One witness also spoke of an injured person.

When police teams arrived on the scene, however, they found some bullet marks but no victim. Enquiries in the various hospitals in Brussels revealed that no one had been brought in with a gunshot wound either.

Territorial disputes?

For months now, shootings have been making headlines in Brussels, especially in the municipality of Molenbeek. Last week, a 20-year-old man was shot dead in the Beekkant neighbourhood in Molenbeek, and a few days before, another man was shot in the leg on the Chaussée de Merchtem.

It is unclear if the shooting in Schaerbeek is linked to Molenbeek. Since September, ​ Molenbeek-Saint-Jean – one of Belgium’s poorest municipalities in Brussels, registered eight shootings. 

“On April 12, 2022, around 9:30 p.m., a police patrol had to intervene during a shooting in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean,” said Sarah Durant, the Spokesperson for the Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Sudinfo reported that day that the shooting might have been related to alleged territorial disputes between rival gangs.

Among the poorest in the country

Molenbeek is one of the nineteen municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, bordering the city centre, Anderlecht and Laeken.

It gained global media notoriety as a base for Islamist terrorists who carried out the attacks of 13 November 2015 in Paris and of 22 March 2016 in Brussels.

It is one of the poorest communes in Belgium. According to the statistical office of Brussels, 44% of women and 39.5% of men were on social welfare aid in 2021. In 2019, youth unemployment was as high as 40%.

Residents have often complained of discrimination in the job market because of where they are from, but also when dealing with the police.

(VIV)

© BELGA PHOTO (DIRK WAEM) The police escorts an ambulance, which probably transported the terrorist Salah Abdeslam, during a police action in Molenbeek, 18 March 2016.