Antwerp rocked by drug-related violence, what’s going on?
NOS News•
Exactly one week ago, the neighborhood around the central station in Antwerp was startled by a shooting. A few days later, it hit the Belgian city again: shots were fired in Antwerp-North, followed by a shooting in the Merksem district. What is going on?
‘Narcoterrorism’, say the Belgian optimization. And that situation is not new. Earlier this summer, facades were shot at in the port city, firebombs were thrown against buildings and hand grenades were set up.
The Antwerp payment has a hard time getting a grip on it, sees the Flemish crime reporter Joris Van der Aa of the Gazet van Antwerpen. “Since the beginning of the summer there have been incidents almost daily,” says the journalist. He sees a clear link with cocaine, which is received via the port of Antwerp.
‘Pressure and intimidate’
According to Van der Aa, there have never been so many incidents in the Belgian city before. “In 2016 we saw for the first time that people were shooting at houses. But that went in short waves, it was restless for a few weeks.” But that unrest, according to the journalist, has been going on for much longer.
More than thirty files on drug violence have been opened since the beginning of June, writes the Belgian broadcaster VRT. That is more than in all of 2021.
Van der Aa speaks of several conflicts in the underworld. He says that Turkey is ordering from Dubai to carry out attacks in Antwerp. “That’s about batches of drugs that have arisen, men made then pressure and intimidate.”
We can no longer make a distinction, the Netherlands and Belgium have long been one area of activity for improvement.
Van der Aa also points to the Netherlands. “The traders here work together with Dutch smugglers. But we also see that the Dutch come here to recruit young people.” Van der A points to four recent arrests: yesterday four Dutch men were arrested in Antwerp with incendiary bombs and a firearm in their car.
In addition, according to the journalist, ‘haulers’ from Amsterdam have already appeared in the port of Antwerp. They remove loads of hard drugs from sea containers on order. “We can no longer distinguish, for improvements it has long been one area of activity”, continues the crime journalist.
‘Lack of manpower’
According to the journalist, the fact that the situation in Antwerp is no longer under control is due to a lack of manpower at the Belgian. “To keep things manageable, we will have to catch up. And that will cost a lot of money.”
In Antwerp there is a fear of ‘Dutch scenes’. Van der Aa: “Lethal violence is exceptional here. But in the Netherlands there are regular liquidations in the underworld.”
‘Classic Drug War’
Antwerp mayor Bart De Wever is making himself substantial. “The drug trade is an internationally branched organization. The clients are no longer in Belgium, but in other countries, sometimes even in prison,” he said on Monday. against the VRT.
He speaks to the NOS of a classic drug war. “Two clans have come into conflict with each other because they compete and order each other.” In addition, according to the mayor, many accomplices have recently been deployed, the underworld has become ‘high voltage’. That, he says, leads to escalations.
Just like Van der Aa, De Wever points to the Netherlands. “The major drug problem has spread from the Netherlands to the south,” he says, referring to Flanders. “You see that there is a shift to Antwerp as a found center for the coke. But it is often Dutch cartels that have taken that initiative.”
According to De Wever, about 80 percent of the hard drugs that are ‘brought in’ in Antwerp go directly to the Netherlands.
The mayor fears that the violence in Antwerp will eventually move to the upper world, which has already happened in the Netherlands. He therefore wants the government to intervene at national level.
To start with, De Wever wants the National Security Council to meet, as happened in 2016 during the terror crisis. “The prime minister should bring together his ministers of the interior, justice and finance for customs,” said the mayor.
This recommendation had already emerged from an evaluation of the current Stroomplan from 2018. Ghent University evaluated the plan and concluded that the federal public prosecutor and the National Security Council have a major role to play.
“De Wever has few legal means to take action against this,” concludes reporter Van der Aa. “I fear that people only wake up when there are deaths.”