Brussels, capital of violence by firearms in Belgium

In 2024, Belgium recorded at least 184 incidents involving firearms, including 71 in Brussels, which made the capital the main center of armed violence in the country. This is what emerges from a new report by the Vredesinstitut Vlaams, reports the VRT. The Institute has developed an innovative tool to map the shootings, for lack of an official database.

Thanks to automated media supervision technology called Gun Vioence Incident Monitor (GVIM), the research center has identified these cases from hundreds of information sources in the European Union. The national assessment is heavy: at least 21 dead and 80 injured, including a very large share concentrated in Brussels.

Almost 40 % of shootings in Brussels

Brussels alone represents 39 % of the incidents listed in 2024, almost half of the injured identified and more than 60 % of the deaths related to firearms. The Vlaams Vredesinstitut points a direct link to the context of local drug trafficking, where conflicts on the retail market are often resolved by violence. Unlike Antwerp, where networks related to the resale of large tend to avoid visible clashes, Brussels remains marked by a more direct and bloody conflict.

“In this type of environment, weapons are not only exhibited, but also used,” explains the Institute. Indeed, in 92 % of cases related to traffic or bands, shots are really fired.

Typical profile: Young man in a criminal context

The authors and the victims of these violence are almost exclusively young men. In the 184 cases analyzed nationally, no shooter was a woman. About 70 % of the authors were under 35, as well as more than half of the victims. Note that among the victims, 16 % were women, mostly in the context of intra -family violence, the only area where women are proportionally more affected.

In total, incidents are mainly distributed in a criminal dynamic: 42 are linked to robberies, 36 to threats or disputes, and 25 specifically in the middle of the drugs or in the bands. If weapons are often used to intimidate in robberies, they are almost systematically drawn in conflicts related to drug trafficking.