{"id":385486,"date":"2026-01-23T04:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385486\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T04:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T04:48:08","slug":"six-injured-after-knife-attack-at-kurdish-demonstration-in-antwerp-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/385486\/","title":{"rendered":"Six injured after knife attack at Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp | Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Six people have been injured after a knife attack at a demonstration in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/belgium\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Belgium<\/a> on Thursday evening, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Two of the victims were in a critical condition in hospital after the incident in the port city of Antwerp near the Operaplein (Opera Square), police spokesperson Wouter Bruyns said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Bruyns said police apprehended the two suspects who, based on initial findings, had mingled with the demonstrators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Four of the people who were stabbed were found in the square, with two others nearby in the vicinity of Rooseveltplaats and Sint-Elisabethstraat, local reports suggested.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Police said the incident was being investigated as a case of attempted murder, \u201cnot terrorism\u201d, and that officers were looking at CCTV footage to ensure no other suspects had evaded arrest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The demonstration outside the Opera House, attended by about 50 people, was initially peaceful, according to the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Flags of the Kurdistan Workers\u2019 party and national flags were waved during the protest in support of Kurds in northern Syria, where Kurdish-led forces have been fighting a government advance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">However, shortly after the demonstration ended at about 7.20pm local time, the situation escalated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Orhan Kilic, a spokesperson for Navbel, a group representing the Kurdish diaspora in Belgium, said families, women, young people and children attended the protest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">He said: \u201cJust as the protest was disbanding, the Kurdish demonstrators were attacked by a group of men.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cThese men had sneaked into the demonstration and suddenly pulled out knives and began stabbing people indiscriminately.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt is clear that this attack is not an isolated instance of senseless violence, but a motivated attack on a community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Forensic officers were seen at the square, and police have urged people to stay away from the area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six people have been injured after a knife attack at a demonstration in Belgium on Thursday evening, police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-385486","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}