Clashes between Turkish and Kurdish communities in Belgium: What’s going on?
From Liège to Limburg, Ghent to Brussels, members of the Turkish and Kurdish diaspora in Belgium have been embroiled in a series of violent confrontations over the last few days which has taken the country by surprise.
Six people were injured on Sunday after a family of Kurds who had celebrated Nowruz – the start of the Persian New Year – were attacked in Heusden-Zolder and Houthalen-Helchteren. But there are conflicting versions of the story.
A statement from the Council of Kurdish Communities in Belgium (NavBel) stated that the victims were a family of Syrian Kurdish refugees who were peacefully making their way back home from the Nowruz event which hosted up to 5,000 Kurds from all over north-western Europe.
The local police chief in Genk, however, said there had been a provocation by certain Kurdish groups, who were waving flags while driving in areas known to have large Turkish diasporas.
“They started provoking the Turkish population with flags,” said police chief Geert Verheyen. “This led to an incident in which a young man of Turkish origin asked the caravan why it was necessary to drive the streets with flags of PKK. He then received several punches.”
One video shows a mob in Houthalen-Helchteren chasing a car, which VRT reported, had “provoked” the crowd by giving a hand gesture associated with the PKK – a militant Kurdish nationalist movement which has been designated as a terrorist group by the European Union and the United States (but not Belgium).
