Two police officers were stabbed in the Brussels district of Schaarbeek on Wednesday, a Federal Prosecutor’s Office spokesman said, in what is being treated as a suspected terror attack.
At noon, two police officers were attacked by a man with a knife on the Boulevard Lambermont, the spokesman told CNN, naming the man as 43-year-old Belgian national Hicham D.
The police are “not in a life-threatening condition,” the spokesman said, explaining that another police patrol was able to overpower the offender.
The offender was shot in the leg, and a third officer was slightly injured.
A 17-year-old French high school student, Stan Racine, witnessed the attack.
“The suspect pulled out a knife and attacked a policeman, and hurt him in the stomach and leg,” he told CNN.
“The policeman then pulled out his pistol and shot the suspect in the leg.”
He said the suspected then shouted something in what he believed was Arabic.
Bomb scare
Separately, the city’s Gare du Nord railway station was closed for an hour because of a bomb alert, Reuters reported, adding that operations resumed after bomb disposal teams checked the area.
Social media users posted pictures of the overcrowded station after the scare, as well as the police presence outside the building.
The attack comes as the city remains on a high terror alert at level three, one below the highest level.
Suicide bombers struck the city’s airport and a subway station on March 22, killing 32 people and injuring more than 300.
Experts have said that Brussels has become a hotbed of terror in Europe. The alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks in November last year, which killed 130 people, was arrested in Belgium.
The offender will face a judge specializing in terrorism cases to decide on any detention details, the prosecutor’s office said.
