Gunman kills four at Jewish museum

FOUR people were shot dead yesterday when a lone gunman opened fire at the Jewish Museum in Brussels.

In what Belgian authorities described as an apparently antiSemitic attack, the man arrived by car at the city-centre tourist attraction just before 4pm.

Witnesses said he was carrying a rucksack and ‘looked determined’ before he pulled out a gun and opened fire at visitors.

A police spokesman said: ‘Bodies were left lying on the ground inside and outside the building. There was blood everywhere and people were screaming.’

The victims were reported to be two women and two men.

A suspect was arrested and was being questioned last night by security officials.

The attacker was seen jumping into an Audi after the shootings by a witness who made a note of the number plate. The car was stopped by police shortly afterwards.

Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Didier Reynders, who was nearby at the time and heard the gunfire, was among the first to reach the scene.

He said he was ‘shocked’ by the killings, but added: ‘There were a lot of witnesses and the investigation is moving fast.’ Confirming that it was an ‘undoubted terrorist attack’, Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur said: ‘It’s not a coincidence the target was a Jewish museum.’

Eyewitness Alain Sobotik revealed he saw two bodies in the lobby of the museum.

‘One was a young woman with her head covered in blood. She was holding a leaflet and looked like a tourist,’ he added.

The country’s Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo expressed his condolences and offered his support to the victims’ families.

The number of violent antiSemitic incidents in Europe has risen in recent years.

Although some have been carried out by Muslim extremists, it is not known who was behind yesterday’s attack.

Maurice Sosnowski, president of the Co-ordination Centre of Jewish Organisations in Belgium, said yesterday’s incident could be ‘the worst anti-Jewish attack in Brussels since the Second World War’.

The Brussels museum records the suffering of Jews who were imprisoned, tortured and murdered during the Holocaust.