11-Year-Old Girl Killed in Antwerp Drug-Related Shooting

On Monday, a Moroccan family was targeted. The local police announced that an 11-year-old girl was killed, after shots were fired at a house in the Antwerp district of Merksem, reports Belga. The targets of the assailants were a garage door behind which a living room converted into a living room and kitchen was located. "The 58-year-old occupant and his two daughters (aged 13 and 18) were slightly injured, but the 11-year-old daughter was seriously injured. Residents of the neighborhood, among others, provided first aid to her," the public prosecutor’s office said. Admitted to the hospital, she succumbed to her injuries.

"The affected family is known [...] There have been incidents before. So there is every reason to believe that this is a settling of scores, once again, in the milieu. A drug war is raging: criminals are attacking the homes of other criminals. We have been witnessing this for months and what I have been fearing for a long time has happened: there has been an innocent victim, a child," declared the mayor of Antwerp, Bart De Wever (N-VA) during the Terzake program on VRT.

The trail of a settling of scores in the drug trade seems to be confirmed. According to the public prosecutor’s office, the two uncles of Firdaous, the deceased child, are suspected of being drug traffickers. One of them is named Othman E.B., and would be an important player in the international cocaine trade. "There will certainly be a reaction," he told the Gazet van Antwerpen from Dubai, where he resides. "But not as the mayor imagines. History has already shown us countless examples of vengeance and it has never ended well."