The suspect in the Brussels attack is still on the run, the Belgian Prime Minister said during a press conference organized early Tuesday, October 17. Alexander De Croo also reported that the individual who killed two Swedish nationals on Monday evening was “of Tunisian origin” and that he “stayed illegally” in Belgium. A National Security Council will be held at 3 p.m. In France, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has instructed that controls at the border with Belgium be strengthened. Follow our live stream.
Alexander De Croo asks the people of Brussels toand exercise maximum vigilance. Level 4 of the terrorist threat, the highest, remains in force in the Brussels Region for the moment. It remains at level 3 for the rest of the country. In the capital, this means increased police presence on the streets, with additional protection in certain sensitive areas, notably those frequented by the Swedish community living in the country.
A football match suspended, then a stadium evacuated. The 35,000 spectators of the Belgium-Sweden match, qualifying for Euro 2024, left the King Beaudouin stadium shortly before midnight on Monday evening, after having been confined there for two and a half hours following the attack which cost life with two Swedes in Brussels. The Swedish fans were the last to leave the stadium.
An unauthenticated claim video. According to several videos posted on social networks and in the Belgian media, the shooter in a fluorescent orange jacket was riding a scooter and fled after using an automatic rifle. A video claiming responsibility for the double murder, in which a man is dressed in the same fluorescent orange jacket and speaks in Arabic, is also circulating, without being authenticated. That man claims to belong to the Islamic State terrorist group and claims to have killed “three Swedes”.
“Europe is shaken up,” reacts Emmanuel Macron. While France itself has just been hit on its soil by a terrorist attack, with the assassination of a teacher in Arras (Pas-de-Calais) on Friday, the French president reacted from Albania, where he is on an official trip. “Brussels has been hit again by a terrorist attack which, as I speak to you, has taken the lives of at least two Europeans, two Swedes”. “Europe is shaken up”he added.