Moroccan Student Sues Belgium Over Traumatic Deportation Experience

Ouiam Ziti painfully remembers the day she was arrested in Belgium, then detained at the Caricole closed center on the outskirts of Brussels, before her expulsion to Romania. "I can understand that Monsieur (the lawyer for the Belgian State, ed.) says that the conditions in which I was treated are not clear or are hypothetical [...] But for me, it has an impact. Today, I cry about it, because it’s not going well. Every time I want to take a flight, the night before, I don’t sleep. And when I arrive in Charleroi, I’m afraid. Afraid to come across the policeman who arrested me," she declares before the 4th French-speaking chamber of the Brussels Court of First Instance. Called to testify, the 5th year dental student at Iasi in Romania arrived in Belgium accompanied by her parents.

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The facts date back to December 2021. Ouiam Ziti, a 4th year dental student at Iasi in Romania, arrived at Charleroi-Gosselies airport in Belgium on December 13 to spend a few days there. She was far from imagining the ordeal that awaited her. The police arrest her. "I was transferred to the Caricole center the same day around 8:30 pm. I was locked up in the Caricole center from Monday, December 13 until Friday, December 24," before being expelled to Romania, the young woman had recounted by telephone to Bruno Duboisdenghien, a former socialist group leader on the Jodoigne municipal council, and a "committed citizen".

The police accuse Ouiam of not having "cash on her to demonstrate that she is able to provide for her subsistence in Belgium," reports Soir.be. Claims refuted by the student who claims to have three bank cards, including a Mastercard, on her, and even offered to accompany an agent to a withdrawal point to prove that she