Dusk is gathering but the pale wintry sunshine keeps temperatures above zero for a final hour. Annelise Augustyns is on her way to a playground near the Gare du Midi with her two children, aged three and five. All three are wrapped against the wind scything across the bleak concrete plaza outside the station.
It is the third day of lockdown in the Belgian capital and the Augustyns have spent three days confined to their small apartment. The 35-year-old government worker’s office in the centre of the city has been shut. So too, on Monday, were the children’s schools.
“You have to live after all, despite all this tension. The kids are going crazy and no one knows how long this is going to last,” Augustyns said.
On Monday night the Belgian government promised to ease the unprecedented crackdown put in place by the Belgian government as security services hunt a network of local Islamic militants linked to the Paris attacks and suspected of planning a similar operation in Brussels. However the threat, prime minister Charles Michel stressed remained “serious and imminent”. » | Jason Burke in Brussels | Monday, November 23, 2015
