January 24, 2009
Knife Attack Kills 3 at Belgian Day Care Center
By STEPHEN CASTLE

DENDERMONDE, Belgium — Two children and an adult were killed and 12 others slashed in a knife attack at a day care center in western Belgium on Friday.
The attack occurred about 20 miles northwest of Brussels, near the town of Dendermonde.
Christian Du Four, a local prosecutor, said at a news conference that a man rode his bicycle to the Fabeltjesland day care center, entered and immediately began slashing adults and children. The two dead children were younger than 3; a woman working in the day care center was also killed.
Theo Janssens, a social worker who arrived about five minutes after the attacks, said: “People were screaming and crying. There was blood everywhere. Babies were crying. People had children in their arms. They were bleeding. One of the children was already dead.”
The assailant then walked out of the center and got on his bicycle. He was apprehended by the police at a nearby supermarket shortly after the 10 a.m. attack, Mr. Du Four said, according to The Associated Press.
Dr. Ignace Demeyer, who was coordinating the medical response to the operation, told reporters that 10 children arrived at area hospitals with serious stab wounds. All required surgery, and all were now in stable condition.
“This was a particularly violent attack. All the kids had multiple stab wounds on their legs, arms and all over their bodies,” he said.
He said two adults also required surgery and were in stable condition. Nine of the 21 children who were at the center at the time of the attack were unharmed, he said.
"People are totally in shock," said Leene Du Bois, a spokeswoman for the regional government of Flanders, The A.P. reported. She said the man suspected of carrying out the attack did not appear to have any connection to the day care center.
Local police did not identify the assailant, nor did they give any biographical information about him beyond his age — between 20 and 25 years old.
One of the day care center’s staff members told Belgian broadcaster RTBF that the attacker’s face had been painted with make-up. Other local media reports said that the man arrested was a local resident of the area with a history of mental illness.
Sharon Otterman contributed reporting from New York.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/24/world/europe/24belgium.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=fabeltjesland%20&st=cse

This is an article that was on The New York Times website about 3 weeks ago. The fact that such a small country as Belgium made it on the frontpage of The New York Times, must say something. January 24, 2009 is a day that nobody will forget in Belgium, especially not in Dendermonde, the small city where the crime scene took place. I enclosed the article so that people will understand the situation that didn't hear the news.

This is not the first time that something like this happened in Belgium. The police is still trying to get the motive of the 21 year old man that walked in a day care center and started stabbing around children and adults who work there. So far the police hasn't made any progres because the 21 year old man wasn't related to any of the victimes or day center.

When I read this article, I had to think of the crime in 2006, where a 15 year old boy got stabbed because he didn't want to give his mp3 player to a robber, or the crime in 2007, where a 13 year old boy was the victim of a murder because he didn't have a cigarette for a stranger.


Where is the society going? Where's it going to end?