A group of about 20 people attacked a garage owner in the Zoomstraat in Lokeren on the night of Friday to Saturday.
Several shots were fired into the air and a man’s hand was severed with an iron bar, the public prosecutor of East Flanders reported.
After the raid, which happened around midnight, all the attackers reportedly fled. However, around the same time, a man whose hand had been severed went to a nearby hospital. It was later established that the man's hand had been cut with an iron rod with a sharp edge.
Four people have been arrested: the garage owner and his brother, as well as the man with the severed hand and the man who took him to hospital.
The prosecutor’s office has asked an investigating judge to further clarify the incident, whose cause was not immediately known.
