Lionel Gougelot (correspondent in the North), edited by Romain Rouillard / Photo credit: JAMES ARTHUR GEKIERE / BELGA MAG / BELGA VIA AFP 14:28 p.m., October 17, 2023

It was in Schaerbeek, one of the 19 municipalities of Brussels-Capital, that the alleged perpetrator of the shootings that claimed the lives of two Swedish women in the Belgian capital, was shot dead on Tuesday morning by the police. In this working-class neighborhood, residents remain anxious as they describe a disturbing individual.

The hunt ended on Tuesday morning at around 8 a.m. in Schaerbeek, one of the 19 municipalities of Brussels-Capital. A man suspected of shooting the lives of two Swedish women in the Belgian capital on Monday night was shot at by security forces before succumbing to his wounds. Abdesalem L., 45, was an asylum seeker, who had already been convicted in Tunisia "for common crimes", without being reported for terrorist risk. In a video, however, he refers to the Islamic State before carrying out the attack.

On Tuesday, the suspected terrorist was shot dead a few hundred meters from his home, in the working-class neighborhood where he had already been spotted. In particular, Jean-Charles, a pensioner who lives on the same street and describes his disturbing behaviour. "I had already spotted it in a supermarket near my home. It was the cliché of radicalism, of what you see on TV, of al-Qaeda etc. He worried me when he hadn't done anything yet. He was giving off something."

"No longer a place in the world where you can be safe"

After the shock and hours of anguish linked to the assailant's failure to arrest, the announcement of his arrest was a real relief. But for a few hours, some, like Laurence, thought they were reliving the nightmare of the 2016 attacks. "My 23-year-old daughter was scared. She told me 'here we go again, here we go again'. I don't think there's a place in the world where you can be safe anymore. So we have to learn to live with that, unfortunately."

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And questions remain among these inhabitants who wonder why this individual, in an irregular situation on Belgian territory, had not been spotted before carrying out the act. "A bit like home, in France," said this Tuesday morning a resident to Europe 1.