Dozens of people have been arrested in the Brussels municipality of Anderlecht after migration-background youths staged a riot and fired shots from a stolen police service weapon.
The trigger for the riot in the European Union capital — which is under strict lockdown as Belgium experiences one of the worst per capita coronavirus death tolls in the world — seems to have been the death of a 19-year-old identified as “Adil”.
The young suffered fatal injuries after running a police checkpoint on a scooter and subsequently colliding with a police van which was sent as back-up, according to POLITICO.
Calls for a “protest” soon followed, despite bans on public gatherings, and video footage shows youths who appear to be from a migration background trashing police vehicles with slabs of stone in the middle of the street.
Reports indicate that the “protest” escalated to the point of an individual disguised by a balaclava firing shots from a handgun which was stolen from the police, ending in at least 43 arrests.