The little girl would have received the fragments of a microwave oven, which exploded under the impact of bullets aimed at a house in this Belgian port city.
An 11-year-old girl was killed by a gunshot at a house in Antwerp, Belgium, on Monday January 9, which authorities said could be linked to intimidation or a settlement between drug dealers.
Mayor Bart De Wever linked the murder to “a drug war that has been going on for months” in the big port city. “Criminals are attacking other criminals’ homes” and “What I have long feared has happened; an innocent victim has fallen, a child,” the elected official explained on Flemish television, making sure that “the family involved is known”.
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Together with AFP, the Antwerp prosecutor pointed out that this trace of the connection to the drug world was “the subject of an investigation”. An investigating judge was arrested for “murder” and went to the crime scene in Antwerp’s Merksem district in the evening, the prosecutor said.
Shards from a microwave oven
According to the first elements communicated by the police, the girl was on the ground floor of the house, in a living room that was behind the garage door, which was attacked by the gunmen. She was not hit directly by the shots, but received fragments of a microwave oven, which exploded under the impact of the bullets, according to elements reported by the Belga news agency. She succumbed to her injuries.
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On Monday evening, Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden lamented “a terrible tragedy”. “We will do everything we can to catch these ruthless criminals. Kids have nothing to do with a drug war,” she tweeted.
The port of Antwerp is the main entry route to Europe for cocaine imported from Latin America, and the traffic leads to increased violent crime, which worries the authorities. The financial stakes are colossal and exacerbate the rivalries between gangs, which are the origin of shootouts or the throwing of targeted explosive devices. This violence is often viewed as intimidation or an act designed to draw police attention to a family or other location.