The shooting incident on Monday evening in the Antwerp district of Merksem, in which an 11-year-old child died, is probably part of the drug environment. Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever (N-VA) said this at Terzake on Canvas. “It is terribly painful that there is now an innocent victim,” he says.
The deceased child was probably not hit by a bullet, but died when a microwave oven exploded as a result of a bullet impact. There were also two minor injuries. All victims were in a kind of kitchen / living room behind the garage door that was targeted by the gunmen.
“The affected family is known”, De Wever points further to the drug environment. “Incidents have happened before. So it looks like this is a reckoning, again, in the environment. There is a drug war going on: criminals are attacking the homes of other criminals. We have been experiencing this for months and what I feared for a long time has happened: an innocent victim has fallen, a child.”
According to De Wever, the drama can “only be an incentive to multiply the efforts that are needed at national and international level” to tackle drug violence.
LOOK. An 11-year-old child died this evening in Merksem after a shooting incident
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