On Thursday morning at around 08:30, passengers on STIB line 7 in Brussels reported that a potentially armed man had entered the tram. Police have since confirmed it was a false alarm.
The report led to a large deployment of police in Schaerbeek. Eyewitnesses report that the potentially armed man was heading in the direction of Rogier. According to Sudinfo, the suspect was wearing a green jacket and a balaclava.
"Several passengers saw an armed man, according to them, on tram 7 around 08:30 this morning," said a spokesperson for STIB. "It happened at the Georges Henri pre-metro station. We immediately notified the police who arrived on the scene, near the George Henri stop. But in the meantime, the man had already gotten off."
The man reportedly got off at the Diamant tram stop. Tram traffic was delayed for half an hour as a result of the incident. Two eyewitnesses were questioned and police reviewed CCTV footage of the incident and confirmed they did not show an armed man on board the tram, making it a false alarm, RTBF reports.
Credit: @lamis_ghd/TikTok
This is not the first incident to concern the public since Monday’s terror attack, which left two dead. On Monday evening, while the terror suspect was still on the run, a separate incident on line 7, just a few hundred metres from Diamant, sent commuters scrambling for cover. A tram was pelted with stones, completely destroying one of the vehicle’s side windows.
Passengers thought the vehicle had come under fire. Panicked passengers quickly threw themselves to the ground. Video footage of the incident showed passengers lying on the floor and cautiously looking out the window. The destroyed window was later spotted on the platform at the Boileau tram station on line 7.
The tram was returning from King Baudouin Stadium on Monday at around midnight, where there was a heightened risk of terrorism. Many foreign football supporters were on board.
