The head of a local business association representing companies near Brussels-Midi station has denounced the Federal Government's "catastrophic" mismanagement of the security situation and predicted that its future actions will only make the area even more dangerous.
Speaking to La Dernière Heure (DH), Nour Eddine Layachi, the President of the Association of Merchants in the Lemonnier district, also suggested that the Federal Government's decision to deploy hundreds of police officers to Midi on Saturday merely represents a short-term fix to a problem with profound structural roots.
"Suddenly, everyone seems to be concerned about a situation that we have been deploring for at least seven years," he said. "In my opinion, the Federal Government will contribute to aggravating the situation. The area around the station will be cleaned for one or two weeks but then it will continue to deteriorate."
He added: "The district has a whole series of problems and the management is catastrophic. For example, they have set up a shooting gallery [a supervised site where addicts can safely take drugs] in the Rue de Woeringen but people still do drugs on the street. This speaks volumes about the inability of politicians to bring order."
The clean-up of Brussels-Midi Station. Saturday 26 August 2023. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
According to official police figures, 146 armed robberies were committed at or near the Brussels-Midi station over the past year. De Standaard recently estimated that the level of crime at Midi is as high as in all stations of all 13 major Flemish cities combined.
'Mind-blowing reality'
During the interview, Layachi painted a vivid picture of the daily dangers faced by local residents and business owners. He also condemned politicians' apparent inability to grasp the severity of the situation.
"On the side of Stalingrad Avenue, any car registered abroad that spends the night outside is regularly vandalised," he claimed. "The poor tourist who leaves the station at 06:00 is robbed. This is the reality and it is mind-blowing that the politicians do not understand it."
Layachi added that his own bicycle has been stolen five times in the past few years – thereby forcing him to regularly repurchase it from a nearby peddler.
"Stolen bicycles or watches are resold a few streets away," he said. "When I get a bike stolen, I know that I will be able to find it at a dealer, for example near Clemenceau in Cureghem."
Belgian Interior Minister Annelies Verlinden was at Brussels-Midi during the police action. Credit: Belga / Nicolas Maeterlinck
He added: "The problem is that certain people who cause trouble are not visible because they go off the radar. They are passing through Brussels before continuing their journey elsewhere."
Promisingly, Layachi's suggestion that the issues around Midi demand far-reaching public policies is increasingly being echoed by senior members of the Federal Government.
Minister of Mobility Georges Gilkinet recently noted that "structural measures" should be employed to remedy the situation around the station, which involve addressing the country's asylum crisis and rising drug use.
"We should not believe that the occasional presence of a few police officers will be enough to bring order," he said. "Beyond this special operation [on Saturday], we must go much further with structural measures."
Similarly, on Friday Prime Minister Alexander De Croo called for renewed inter-governmental cooperation to reduce Midi's crime rate: "It is a complex problem that cuts across several levels of government... We want to work together to tackle the problem."
