2023-09-04 05:50:00
Friday, 8 p.m. Two young men are chatting between the Yser metro station and the tram stop. They may be 18 or 19, no more. Their conversation, mixing Dutch and English, makes the few people around smile. The tram arrives. The show is over. Everyone leaves. All except the two youngsters. Obviously, they are not waiting for the tram. They are waiting for a particular tram. Five minutes later, the vehicle arrives. Another boy goes down, shakes hands with the duo, then comes back up immediately.
The scene lasted a handful of seconds. It was a deal. Cannabis? Cocaine? Ecstasy pills? No one will ever know what the two young boys have just bought before they leave. Discreetly, but joyfully.
“This is our sad daily life, and it’s been getting worse and worse since the beginning of the year,” laments Eric Vandezande, head of the Sainctelette neighborhood committee. He says he is particularly shocked by the recent regression of the neighborhood where he has lived for twenty years. “I’m afraid that if this traffic doesn’t stop now, it will become more and more organized, allowing a real mafia to settle here.”
Fight with axes, lighters, syringes
Because Eric is categorical: the consumption of narcotics and the acts of violence that result from it are on the rise. There have been attempts to question the political authorities, but nothing concrete. Above all, the requests made it possible to express a feeling of insecurity. Today, the feeling has given way to real fears. “We are witnessing unprecedented acts of violence. There was an ax fight at my neighbors house. They had to clean up the blood that had splattered on their door, says Eric. For the past few months, picking up lighters, syringes and cleaning dirt related to crack consumption in front of my door has become an almost daily activity. And we are afraid that the situation will become commonplace.”
Two homeless people stabbed in the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels
In addition to a risk of trivialization, Eric fears that the stirring news around the Brussels-Midi station will worsen the situation in the other districts of the capital. “The operations carried out there risk shifting the problems to our neighborhoods,” continues Eric. We are already confronted with phenomena linked to the sale and consumption of narcotics, but here it has become unbearable and we do not want it to get worse.
So, together with the other inhabitants of the district, an open letter was sent to Minister-President Rudi Vervoort (PS). The latter has also invited them to a meeting on Friday 1 September. But Eric Vandezande, tired, asked other residents to continue the fight by forming a citizens’ movement, “the 40 Committees”, bringing together several residents and associations from the Yser and Sainctelette districts. The objective is to assess the security and health situation in the district, then to share this kind of barometer with the political authorities.
In the Yser metro station, drug users take refuge to sleep. ©M.Ben.
Sentiment d’abandon
”When you walk through the neighborhood, you see a great dynamic and a great diversity. There is a theatre, a starred restaurant and pubs for the general public, a football field and a library. All this allows a real mixing of the population, but the growing insecurity risks scaring people away, deplores Eric. I like living here and if I had wanted to settle in a sanitized neighborhood, without any mixing, I would live on the outskirts. That’s not what I want. I want to live in a neighborhood where people mix and where everyone feels good and at home. People who live in great precariousness must be taken care of. Getting rid of them by stepping up police operations won’t solve anything. They need structural solutions, shelter and care”.
Karima, who lives a little further, a stone’s throw from the Gare du Nord, shares the same observation. “People have been asking for lasting solutions for years. All we see is a proliferation of scoops. As a result, metro stations have become drug consumption rooms. I am afraid to enter Yser station and I have forbidden my children to set foot there. I saw people, completely disoriented, taking drugs, urinating in the station or beating themselves up for no reason”.
According to this local resident, who has lived in Yser for more than 25 years, the district’s metro stations fill up every time a police operation is carried out in the nearby districts. “When the people who occupied the Bourse district and the pedestrian area were packed up, they took refuge here. It’s the same for people who were in and around Ribaucourt station. It’s unfortunate to see them there, sleeping on the floor, completely stoned. In their interest, and for our safety, they must be taken care of.”
And to add: “In the Yser station, between dirt and drugs, people are slowly dying”.
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“The drugs come to us”
When we enter the said station, we find that the places are however particularly clean. Stib security officers patrol, creating a somewhat more serene atmosphere. Burak, a young undocumented man who squats in the station, chats with the patrol in broken French.
The patrol leaves and the young boy stays there, without saying a word. When asked why stay here, he shrugs. “Because I have nowhere else to go. Because it’s not cold here,” he says laconically. He then rummages in his pockets, pulls out an old syringe, gently takes off his shoes and pricks himself between his toes. When he finishes, the young boy looks up with a pained look. He then heads to the top of the station, sits in a corner, and closes his eyes.
Other drug users are installed in the station. They justify their presence by the fact that it is an easily accessible place of consumption. “The drugs come to us”, confesses one of them.
Isabelle and Charles, former inhabitants of the district, say they are flabbergasted when they hear this story. They lived in the Alhambra district for many years. But seven years ago, they decided to sell their apartment and leave town. “We cracked up and left. The authorities have turned a blind eye to the situation for too long. Now people shoot themselves in front of everyone, it’s atrocious, they lament. If, in a few years, there is an exodus, it will not be necessary to look long for the reasons. Brussels has become the jungle”.
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