Brussels’ drug war in Saint-Gilles: residents caught between bombs, shootings and an absent state
Brussels
8 September 2026 09:10
Beke* [EUobserver is not publishing his full name] was detained by the police at his work earlier this year when around 10kg of marijuana was shipped by FedEx to his home address in Saint-Gilles, a vibrant neighbourhood in Brussels where a spate of gang-related drug violence has made international headlines.
“I was put in a cell and interrogated by the police,” he told EUobserver.
Released some 26 hours later, Beke had become another innocent victim of neighbourhood violence, after drug criminals stole his identity to ship drugs.
The package had been sent to his home where his wife was caring for their new-born child. “We live on a street where there are criminals,” he added.
Saint-Gilles is one of Brussels’ 19 municipalities, known for its multicultural communities composed of some 140 nationalities as well as its striking Art Nouveau architecture all within 2.5 square kilometres.
Alongside its festivals, restaurants and cafe culture, Saint-Gilles also has a large artistic scene that annually opens up to the public.
But in recent years, gang-related violence has also taken hold, with dealers now openly selling drugs in the middle of the day and terrifying local residents.
They operate in broad daylight at a playground next to the Parvis, a central square in Saint-Gilles, even when children are at play. The distance between the dealers and the municipal police station, which is also located at the same square, is less than 400 metres.
They can also be found at Bethléem square, where dealers reportedly make anywhere between €15k to €50k daily even though the price of cocaine has dropped substantially over the years. Before the Covid pandemic, a gram was around $100. Today it is $16, according to Belgium’s interior minister, Bernard Quintin.
Last year, Brussels recorded 102 shootings across the city. This year’s tally already stands at 62 and is likely to rise, says Julien Moinil, Brussels’ chief prosecutor, who singled out Saint-Gilles and its neighbouring municipality, Forest.
“So is it going to stop? I don’t think so. Do you think it’s going to calm down? No. Are there risks of new shootings? Yes. And are there risks for citizens? Yes,” he recently told reporters, noting there had also been 22 explosions.
Bomb blows out school windows
In mid-April, several bombs were detonated in residential streets in Saint-Gilles. One blast shattered 15 windows at the Institut des Filles de Marie, a maternity and primary school directly across from the intended target, the OKLM Chicha Lounge bar. No one was injured. An earlier bomb, detonated in another street, had also damaged around 10 vehicles.
The April violence was then followed by a string of shootings in late August, prompting police to intercept two individuals armed with Kalashnikovs and handguns in a local park in Saint-Gilles, near the Halle Gate. The park is ripe with homelessness, often by undocumented migrants who have been largely abandoned by the state.
A police station in the adjoining neighbourhood of Anderlecht had also been shot up, in what authorities say was a tactic to intimidate them.
Moinil says police over the past year have made some 7,000 arrests in Brussels involving people without the legal right to stay in Belgium.
“I am not talking about people without residency papers, that’s an administrative problem. I’m talking about people staying illegally who commit offence, for example a rape, drug trafficking, a shooting,” he says, noting some offenders have multiple deportation orders.
Moinil also describes them as a cheap labour for leaders of criminal organisations. Some of those recruited by drug gangs are also minors from France, which can also easily slip through the Belgian justice system, he adds.
More than 80 convictions for shootings, including drug convictions, have currently been suspended by the government given prison overcrowding. And a new penal code now makes prison a last resort, a final option judges must justify outside alternatives like community service or fines.
Moinil is now pleading for more investigators and a larger budget to tackle the problem.
But the problem also runs deeper, rooted in Belgium’s often fragmented legal and administrative structures, which divide competences and budgets across local, regional, and federal levels even as the rightwing government under Bart De Wever seeks some €10bn in budget cuts.
Belgium, for instance, has five climate and environment ministers, one at the federal level with others spread out at the regional and communal level.
canisgallicus 