Belgium‘s Euro 2024 qualifier against Sweden was abandoned at half-time after two people were shot dead in a suspected terrorist attack.
Police in Brussels on Tuesday shot dead a suspected Tunisian extremist accused of killing the two Swedish football fans in a brazen shooting in the street before initially disappearing into the night.
Following the attack, supporters were kept inside the stadium for hours before they were eventually allowed to depart. However, BBC Sport reports that around 400 Swedish fans spent the night inside hotels under police protection. The last staff and fans reportedly departed the stadium at 4am local time.
After Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo confirmed the victims in Monday’s shooting were Swedish, the decision was taken to call off the game at the King Baudouin Stadium.
The score was 1-1 at the time. Viktor Gyokeres gave Sweden a 15th-minute lead, but Romelu Lukaku had Belgium level just after the half hour.
The Swedish Football Association had announced supporters should stay in the stadium on police advice “for security reasons” and co-operate with the authorities on site. Fans were kept in the stadium for more than two hours before a message on the stadium screen asked them to leave “calmly”.
Sweden manager Janne Andersson said the players had asked for the game to be abandoned when they heard about the shooting.
“I felt it was completely unreal,” he told a press conference. “What kind of world do we live in today? I was supposed to have a good chat with the players but I heard it and almost started crying.
“When the team started talking, we agreed 100 per cent that we didn’t want to play on out of respect for the victims and their families.”
Sweden captain and Manchester United defender Victor Lindelof said security put the team “at ease”.
“They explained that this is the safest place to be in Brussels,” he said. “Belgium are already qualified and we don’t have the opportunity to get to the European Championship, so I see no reason to play.”
Governing body Uefa confirmed the Group F match had been abandoned following consultation with both teams and local police.
Amateur videos posted on social media of Monday's attack showed a man wearing an orange fluorescent vest pull up on a scooter, take out a large weapon and open fire on passersby before chasing them into a building to gun them down.
Interior Minister Verlinden earlier said that a person may have been shot by police early Tuesday in connection with the rampage, prior to the aforementioned confirmation that it was the shooter of the Swedish fans. "It appears someone has been shot," she told VRT radio. "The federal prosecutor's office still has to confirm the identity" of the person.
"Last night, three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party. Two of them lost their lives in a brutal terrorist attack," Prime Minister De Croo said at a news conference just before dawn. "Their lives were cut short in full flight, cut down by extreme brutality."
De Croo said his thoughts were with the victims' families and that he had sent his condolences to the Swedish prime minister. Security has been beefed up in the capital, particularly around places linked to the Swedish community in the city.
"The attack that was launched yesterday was committed with total cowardice," De Croo said.
Prosecutor Eric Van Duyse said "security measures were urgently taken to protect the Swedish supporters" in the stadium. More than two hours after the game was suspended, a message flashed on the big stadium screen saying, "Fans, you can leave the stadium calmly." Stand after stand emptied onto streets filled with police as the search for the attacker continued.
"Frustrated, confused, scared. I think everyone was quite scared," said Caroline Lochs, a fan from Antwerp.
De Croo said the assailant was a Tunisian man living illegally in Belgium who used a military weapon to kill the two Swedes and shoot a third who is recovering from "severe injuries."
Federal Prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw described how the suspect, a 45-year-old man who wasn't named, had posted a video online claiming to have killed three Swedish people.
The suspect is alleged to have said in the video that, for him, the Quran is "a red line for which he is ready to sacrifice himself."
Sweden raised its terror alert to the second-highest level in August after a series of public Quran-burnings by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant groups.
Belgian prosecutors said overnight that nothing suggested the attack was linked to the latest war between Israel and Hamas.
Police raided a building in the Brussels neighborhood of Schaerbeek overnight where the man was thought be staying but did not find him. Sweden's foreign ministry sent out a text message to subscribers in Belgium asking them "to be vigilant and to carefully listen to instructions from the Belgian authorities."
According to Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, the suspect was denied asylum in 2019. He was known to police and had been suspected of involvement of human trafficking, living illegally in Belgium and of being a risk to state security.
Information provided to the Belgian authorities by an unidentified foreign government suggested that the man had been radicalised and intended to travel abroad to fight in a holy war. But the Belgian authorities were not able to establish this, so he was never listed as dangerous.
The man was also suspected of threatening a person in an asylum center and a hearing on that incident had been due to take place on Tuesday, Van Quickenborne said.
Belgian Asylum State Secretary Nicole de Moor said the man disappeared after his asylum application was refused so the authorities were unable to locate him to organize his deportation.
A terror alert for Brussels was raised overnight to 4, the top of Belgian's scale, indicating an extremely serious threat. It previously stood at 2, which means the threat was average. The alert level for the rest of the country was raised to 3.
De Croo said that Belgium would never submit to such attacks. "Moments like this are a heavy ordeal," he told reporters, "but we are never going to let ourselves be intimidated by them."
PA and Associated Press agencies contributed to this report
