BE incident archive
Source-backed homicide and attempted homicide records documented in BE. This page summarizes the archive's documented floor for the country; it is not an official total or a representative sample.
Read the methodology and limitations
- Documented records
- 11
- Cities represented
- 10
- Latest incident date
- 20 August 2026
- Latest review
- 24 August 2026
Documented floor by year
| Year | Documented here | Official reference |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 7 records | — |
| 2025 | 3 records | — |
| 2024 | 1 record | — |
No Eurostat reference series is currently loaded for BE.
Current judicial status
- 5Alleged
- 4Charged
- 2Convicted
Latest judicial-status entries
- Oostende, BE
Charged on · incident date
- Jambes, BE
Convicted on · incident date
- Temse, BE
Charged on · incident date
- Leopoldsburg, BE
Charged on · incident date
- Merchtem, BE
Alleged on · incident date
- Brussel, BE
Alleged on · incident date
- Antwerpen, BE
Charged on · incident date
- Antwerpen, BE
Alleged on · incident date
Latest documented records
- Homicide in oostende, BE
· Charged · 1 source
A woman's body was found at 8.30pm on Thursday 20 August 2026 in a terraced house in the Meiboomwijk, in the centre of Oostende, West Flanders. The prosecution service treated it from the outset as a suspicious death. The date of the killing has not been established. It cannot have been later than 20 August 2026, the evening the body was found, and was probably earlier: the victim could not be identified because the body was already in a state of decomposition. The house is thought to have been hers. A 47-year-old man was picked up on the Friday and an examining magistrate ordered his detention on Saturday 22 August on suspicion of murder, as confirmed by the West Flanders prosecution service. He was due to appear before the court the following week. He held a reference address with the municipal social services. The victim and the suspect are reported to have known each other, but the nature of the connection between them was still under investigation. The prosecution service said it could give no further information in the interest of the inquiry.
- Homicide in leopoldsburg, BE
· Charged · 1 source
A 41-year-old man is being held on suspicion of murder after his girlfriend was struck and killed by his van on the Kerkhovenweg in Leopoldsburg, Limburg, on the evening of Saturday 8 August 2026, at around 7.30pm. The 40-year-old woman, from Heusden-Zolder, died at the scene of her injuries. The suspect, from Lommel, had drunk too much at the time of the incident; a saliva test for drugs was negative. He was arrested shortly afterwards on suspicion of murder and denies hitting her deliberately. Whether the collision was intentional remains the central question of the investigation. On 14 August 2026 the raadkamer in Hasselt ruled that he remains in pre-trial detention.
- Homicide in merchtem, BE
· Alleged · 3 sources
A 7-year-old boy was found dead in an apartment on Korte Ridderstraat in Merchtem, in Flemish Brabant, during the night of Wednesday 6 to Thursday 7 August 2026. The medical examiner found that he died as a result of his injuries, which were consistent with child abuse; investigators found various lesions on his body. Three adults who were in the home were taken into custody. The boy's 24-year-old uncle is held on suspicion of murder and has admitted being responsible for the death, though his lawyer argues that the charge is too severe and that the case should be treated as assault and battery resulting in death. The boy's 27-year-old mother and her 22-year-old housemate are held on suspicion of culpable neglect; the housemate's lawyer says she was on another floor of the building and called the emergency services as soon as she realised something was wrong. On 12 August 2026 the pre-trial chamber in Brussels extended the detention of all three. Residents of Merchtem organised a silent procession for the boy.
- Attempted homicide in brussel, BE
· Alleged · 1 source
Two people were wounded in a knife attack on the morning of Thursday 30 July 2026 at the Beurs metro station on the Anspachlaan in central Brussels. One of them was in a critical condition immediately after the attack but is now out of danger. The station was closed for several hours. Two suspects were arrested and are held on a charge of attempted murder. The precise circumstances of the attack have not yet been established.
- Attempted homicide in antwerpen, BE
· Charged · 5 sources
A 50-year-old woman was stabbed in the early morning of 28 July 2026 in the Vingerlingstraat, in the Schipperskwartier district of Antwerp. Police were called shortly after 06:30 after she was found lying in the street with stab wounds. She was taken to hospital in a life-threatening condition; her condition later stabilised and she is no longer in danger. The suspect fled before police arrived. Officers set up a perimeter and searched the surrounding area without finding any trace of the attacker, and the federal forensic laboratory was called in to examine traces at the scene while investigators reviewed camera footage. Later the same day local detectives arrested an 18-year-old man at his home. On 29 July 2026 the Antwerp public prosecutor's office confirmed that, after questioning, the suspect was brought before an investigating judge who remanded him in custody on suspicion of attempted murder. Police said the context and circumstances of the attack were not yet clear. On 3 August 2026 the Antwerp pre-trial chamber ruled that he remains in custody. He denies any involvement in the stabbing; his lawyer says he is cooperating with the investigation.
- Attempted homicide in antwerpen, BE
· Alleged · 1 source
A man was shot in the early hours of Sunday near the Ikon nightclub at the Straatsburgdok in Antwerp. The victim, a man in his twenties, was taken to hospital in life-threatening condition. The shooter fled the scene and remains at large.
- Attempted homicide in hesbaye, BE
· Alleged · 2 sources
A female inspector of Belgium's central anti-corruption office, one of the last investigators working on the Qatargate corruption case at the European Parliament, was severely beaten in early June 2026 while walking near a meadow in the Hesbaye region, in the province of Liège. She was attacked by one or more people and suffered extremely violent blows, particularly to the face, causing injuries that have left her unfit for work. She survived. The Liège public prosecutor's office opened a judicial investigation qualified as attempted murder and appointed a forensic doctor to assess the injuries. No suspect has been identified and all lines of inquiry remain open. Investigators have so far been unable to establish any connection between the attack and the victim's professional work on the corruption case, and the federal prosecutor's office that leads that case has confirmed it has not opened a file in connection with these facts.
- Attempted homicide in geetbets, BE
· Convicted · 3 sources
The suspect attacked the victim, his ex-partner's adoptive mother, at her home in Geetbets after observing the residence for two days. She sustained more than fifty stab wounds, including at least ten to vital areas, and survived only because of swift medical intervention. A court in Leuven sentenced the suspect to 14 years in prison. After learning of the verdict by text message, he cut off his ankle monitor and fled, but was recaptured the following day by police and the Federal Police's FAST team in his hometown of Aarschot.
- Homicide in gent, BE
· Alleged · 1 source
A social worker employed by the municipal welfare service in Gent was killed on the evening of 13 August 2025 during a round of home visits. When he failed to arrive at his second appointment, police went to the first address he had called at, a social housing unit in the Kikvorsstraat in the Nieuw Gent district, and found him there. He had been killed with violence. He was 56. The resident of the flat, a man who had lived in Belgium for years and had a psychiatric history, had left the scene. He was arrested hours later on the other side of the city and has been held since on suspicion of murder. A reconstruction was carried out at the scene in May 2026. What drove the killing remains unclear. The case prompted a wave of public reaction in Gent and beyond, including a silent vigil the day after the killing and a memorial gathering in Nieuw Gent attended by around a thousand people. It also led welfare services across Flanders to accelerate existing plans on staff safety, including emergency call buttons, redesigned premises with better escape routes, and checklists for home visits.
- Attempted homicide in jambes, BE
· Convicted · 1 source
A man was beaten and left for dead at a house in Jambes, a sub-municipality of Namur, on 24 July 2025. On 20 August 2026 the court in Namur convicted his neighbour, then 49, of attempted murder and sentenced him to 17 years in prison. According to the case heard at trial, the defendant invited the victim into his home, saying he wanted to discuss something with him. Once the victim was inside, he was severely beaten. The defendant then called the emergency services himself, telling the operator that he thought the man was dying. Responders found the victim unconscious in a pool of blood. The victim survived his injuries but has remained in a semi-vegetative state since the attack, unable to communicate or to eat unaided. The defendant suspected the victim of having sexually abused his partner's six-year-old son. Belgian reporting notes that the victim had been convicted in 2020 of abusing a five-year-old child and given a 37-month suspended sentence, that two further complaints of abuse of minors were made against him in the summer of 2025, and that an investigation into the alleged abuse of the defendant's stepson was under way at the time of the attack. The case attracted considerable attention in and beyond the courtroom.
- Attempted homicide in temse, BE
· Charged · 1 source
A young woman was attacked in Temse, East Flanders, on Friday 19 January 2024. According to the East Flanders public prosecutor's office she had set off on her scooter from Temse railway station when a man, also on a scooter, followed her and pushed her off it. He then punched her repeatedly in the face and seized her by the throat. She broke free, fled to a nearby house and the police were called. The attacker fled and was not traced at the time. An appeal for information produced 34 tips, and DNA traces recovered at the scene were examined. The resulting profile matched that of a man who had been identified in a separate investigation, and he was arrested on 22 December 2025 and brought before an investigating magistrate the following day. The prosecution treats the Temse attack as attempted manslaughter. The suspect, a 40-year-old man, is due to answer for it before the correctional court in Dendermonde on 1 September 2026, alongside a separate charge arising from the investigation in which he was first identified.