A gunman who shot dead two Swedish football supporters in central Brussels was still on the run on Tuesday morning, prime minister Alexander De Croo has said, calling the attack “terrorist madness”.
The Swedish national football team were playing against Belgium at King Baudouin Stadium, about 5km away, on Monday evening but the match was abandoned at half-time after news of the attack and the crowd was instructed to stay inside the stadium.
De Croo said the Belgian capital remained on a threat level of four – the country’s highest – and called on the public to be “extra vigilant”. He said security would be increased, particularly in sensitive areas, including those belonging to the Swedish community.
The attack was “cowardly”, he told reporters. “The perpetrator targeted Swedish supporters. It was said to be a man of Tunisian origin who was staying illegally in our country.”
“Two lives were cut short, mown down by the most extreme cruelty. Our thoughts go out to the victims, their loved ones, their relatives. We offer our condolences,” De Croo said. A third person was seriously injured.
More than 35,000 football fans attending the Belgium-Sweden football match remained inside the stadium until the evacuation began just before midnight.
Police officers provided extra protection for Swedish nationals at the game, escorting Sweden’s national players directly to the airport to leave safely, Belgium’s football association CEO told the RTBF channel.
In a video posted on social media, a man identifying himself as the attacker said “he was inspired by the Islamic State” extremist group, the spokesman for the federal prosecutor’s office, Eric Van Duyse, said on the LN24 news channel on Monday night.
The suspect in the shooting was a 45-year-old Tunisian man who had probably been living in Belgium since 2016 and who had applied for asylum in 2019, justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne told reporters on Tuesday.
Police had been aware of him since 2016 when a foreign police service classed him as radicalised, however nothing concrete had been done with the information as there were so many such reports at that time, Van Quickenborne said.
Nicole de Moor, the state secretary for asylum and migration, said the suspect’s asylum application had been rejected in 2020, after which he disappeared from authority’s radar.
The federal prosecutor’s office confirmed to local media that an address in the Schaarbeek neighbourhood of Brussels where the suspect was thought to have been staying had been searched overnight but he was not found.
The gunman, who was wearing a fluorescent orange jacket and using an automatic rifle, fled the scene on a scooter after the incident, according to a video shared by the Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.
Media reports aired amateur videos showing a man firing several shots near a station using a large weapon. A taxi driver was wounded and receiving treatment in hospital, the prosecutor’s spokesperson said.
The threat level in the rest of the country was raised to level 3. It previously stood at 2, which means the threat is average.
The shooting took place in the capital’s northern districts. Police were alerted to the incident after 7 pm local time (1700 GMT).
A police spokesperson, Ilse Vande Keere, said officers arrived at the scene and sealed off the immediate neighbourhood. She declined to elaborate on the circumstances of the shooting.
The federal prosecutor in charge of terrorism cases launched an investigation. Police are only investigating one suspect at the moment based on preliminary information.
The individual claiming the attack said the Swedish nationality of his victims was a motivation, Van Duyse said but added there appeared to be no links with the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the Middle East.
EU sources said concerns had been growing that the Israel-Hamas conflict would increase security risks in Europe, and a rise in antisemitic attacks has already been seen in the UK.
Sweden raised its terror alert to the second highest level in August after a series of public burnings of the Qur’an by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant groups.
Interior minister Annelies Verlinden spoke of “horrific facts” at the press conference with De Croo and said security services were doing all they could to track down the perpetrator. “We stand shoulder to shoulder against terrorism,” she said.
Earlier, Sweden’s justice minister, Gunnar Strömmer, said: “Tonight we have received terrible news from Brussels. The government office and relevant authorities are working intensively to get more information about what happened.
The Belgian royal palace said it was “shocked” by the shooting.
“Our thoughts are first and foremost with the victims, their families and loved ones. We support the security forces who are currently doing their utmost to track down the perpetrator,” the palace said on social media.
Charles Michel, the president of the European Council, which represents member states in Europe, said: “The heart of Europe is hit by violence. My heart goes out to the families of the victims of the deadly attack in the centre of Brussels.
The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said her thoughts were with the families of the victims of the “despicable attack in Brussels,” adding: “Together, we stand united against terror.”
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said Europe had been “shaken” by the “Islamist” attack. The French interior minister, Gérald Darmanin, ordered the strengthening of security controls at the border with Belgium while the perpetrator remained at large.
Authorities in the two countries were alert to the possibility that the perpetrator could cross the border, in a repeat of a security failure in 2016 when Salah Abdeslam, the sole surviving perpetrator of the 2015 Paris attack that killed 130 people, fled to Brussels.
France was put on its highest level of security alert earlier this week after a suspected radical Islamist killed a teacher and injured three others in the north of the country.
