Police sweep Maximilian Park, arrest ‘dozens’

Police arrested about 50 of the migrants camping in Maximilian Park in the Brussels’ canal district on Sunday night, according to reports from volunteers present in the park at the time.

Many of the migrants were at the time waiting in line to see if a volunteer family was available. A citizens’ group is working to place the migrants with households willing to take them in.

“When the police cars showed up, everyone started to run away,” Adriana Costa Santos, co-ordinator of the effort, told Bruzz. “We don’t know exactly how many they took with them, but we’ve established that it was between 40 and 60.”

A police spokesperson confirmed that ‘a few dozen people’ were taken into custody and that police would try to identify them. Sweeps have been done in the past to identify transmigrants – those who are passing through with no intention of requesting asylum in Belgium.

Those migrants, who are in the country illegally – often with the intention to travel on to the UK – can be sent back to their home countries or to another European country where they have previously established a residency. According to police, ‘vulnerable migrants’ such as pregnant women and minors, are taken to asylum centres in Belgium, where their cases are assessed.