Forty-four migrants, including 11 unaccompanied minors, were arrested for questioning, on Wednesday morning, during an extensive police control operation. This was conducted around the Brussels-North railway station. Nineteen of these people arrested for questioning may have been sent to detention centres, but definitive confirmation of this will only be known today. This was indicated by Dominique Ernould, the spokeswoman from the Immigration Office.
Dominique Ernould stated, “There were 19 Sudanese, 20 Egyptians, two Libyans, one Iraqi and one Guinean. In addition, there was one person whose nationality could not be clearly established.”
The action did not concern the Maximilian Park close-by, which is not within the territory of the Brussels-North police zone but that of the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles zone.
On Tuesday, the Minister for the Interior, Jan Jambon (New Flemish Alliance) had tweeted that the government was going to tackle the situation in this Brussels Park, where several migrants are staying. He said that police checks were going to be stepped up.
On the same day, The Minister for Employment and the Economy Kris Peeters (Flemish Christian Democrats) decided to send the Labour Inspectorate to the Maximilian Park. The purpose of this was to counter “dishonest employers”, who have been recruiting migrants as cheap labour there.
The Brussels Times
