Barely a day after a leading Belgian terrorism expert sounded the alarm on the risk of entering crowded areas during the festive period, Brussels last night witnessed another shooting in which four people were injured – one critically.
Though police were quick to rule out a terror incident, European centres have been braced against such acts of violence after a spate of attacks in recent months, including in Brussels on 16 October. On Tuesday, the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johanssen said that Europe faces a "huge risk of terrorist attacks" in the coming weeks, citing the ongoing tensions in Israel and Palestine that have led to "polarisation in our society".
Last night's shooting took place on one of the city's busiest shopping streets, Toison d'Or. It has subsequently been deemed a settling of scores between rival gangs – an issue that has become commonplace in Antwerp (now notorious for drug-related violence) and is now occurring with growing frequency in the capital.
The ominous warning by security specialists have so far proven disturbingly accurate, the message being that it's more a question of when rather than if. To make matters worse, Belgium has one of Europe's highest rates of violence with firearms, with the federal police reporting close to 6,000 offences of illicit firearm possession each year – figures that have held for over a decade.
Whilst the cartels competing for supremacy in the drug trade have been known to employ gruesome torture tactics out of sight and beyond protection from forces of law and order, a sense of impunity among traffickers has seen intimidation and assault carried out in public. A study published today by the Flemish Peace Institute highlights a growing number of instances in which firearms are being used, from gang wars to robbery.
With the uptick comes a higher chance that the public are collateral damage, if not targeted directly. Can we no longer assume safety in numbers?
Let @Orlando_tbt know.
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