Six injured after van drives into Brussels cafe terrace, driver arrested

A van drove into a terrace in a side street of the Rue Neuve shopping street in the centre of Brussels on Friday afternoon. Six people were slightly injured and the driver has since been arrested.

A driver crashed into a terrace on the Rue Saint-Michel, near the Rue Neuve in the city centre, just before 13:00, Ilse Van de Keere of the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles police zone confirmed. Six people were slightly injured but no one had to be taken to hospital, according to Walter Derieuw of the Brussels fire brigade.

Soon after, the white van was found a little further down the road, in Rue du Méridien in the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode commune, where it was examined by the Dovo Demining Service.

Later in the afternoon, the driver of the van was arrested in Antwerp, a reliable source confirmed to Belga. Why he drove into the terraces is not yet known, but the man is reportedly known to the judicial authorities, reports VRT.

The incident raised the threat level from 2 to 3 in some places in Brussels, but this level has since been lowered again. The Belgian Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA) explains that initially there were some "worrying elements" in the case, but "reassuring elements" have emerged in the meantime.

(KOR)

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