Drug gang crime has become so out of control in Brussels that military forces will be deployed to the Belgian capital, the government announced this weekend.
The increasingly violent situation in Brussels, fueled in large part by drug gangs often of North African descent, such as the infamous multinational Morco Mafia, has spurred the government to take drastic action in the multicultural city, in which around four in ten residents are now foreign nationals.
Minister of the Interior Bernard Quintin told De Standaard: “We don’t want to lose domestic territory… The army must defend the integrity of the territory. Military personnel usually do this at our borders or far beyond. But the war against drug crime also falls under the protection of our territory.”
“Only the modalities still need to be worked out,” Quintin added. “Anyone who doesn’t see an emergency situation now has been living on a different planet for the past year.”
The Interior Minister said that he was inspired by a recent conversation with a local police officer, who told him that drug gangs are “not afraid of the blue anymore,” but they still fear the military uniforms of soldiers.
“By deploying the army, the state demonstrates its willingness to use all its power for the safety of its citizens,” he said, adding that soldiers will be deployed in mixed units with police.
Although Quintin denied that there are any “no-go zones in Belgium yet, he warned that “there are places where it is difficult and that we are in danger of losing.”
The Belgian capital has been fraught with violence, including a bloody summer in which 20 people were shot, with a total of 57 since the start of the year. Brussels public prosecutor Julien Moinil said last month that 6,211 adults and 874 minors had been arrested this year, a threefold increase over 2024.
Mionil said that 1,250 of those arrested were suspected drug dealers, with rival gangs often engaging in turf battles, including shootouts with Kalashnikovs. Like gangs in fellow northern European nations like Sweden and Denmark, minors are frequently used by foreign criminal gangs, given that they typically receive less jail time.
Nevertheless, the prosecutor called for prison security to be tightened, to prevent gang bosses who are actually imprisoned from continuing to give orders from behind bars. Mionil also advocated for a much faster process to deport foreign criminals from Belgium.
While Interior Minister Quintin said that the exact details of where exactly soldiers will be deployed outside of Brussels remain to be determined, he said that the government’s “comprehensive plan” will target the entire capital region and other cities impacted by the illegal drug trade, including Antwerp, Ghent, Liège, Charleroi, and Mons.
The plan is reminiscent of that of U.S President Donald Trump, who has already deployed National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. and is said to be considering similar actions in other Democrat-run crime hotspots such as Chicago and New Orleans. In the week following the deployment to D.C., crime was reported to have dropped by 22 per cent.
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