Antwerp Blast Injures Toddler and Five Adults

A 1.5-year-old toddler and five adults were taken to hospital after an explosive device was detonated at the front door of a home in the Luchtbal district of Antwerp, Belgium, shortly after midnight on Wednesday. The blast started a small fire, and the six residents were hospitalised as a precaution for possible smoke inhalation, according to VRT NWS. No suspects have been arrested and the motive is under investigation.

The device exploded at around midnight at a house on the Columbiastraat. Residents and neighbours tried to put out the resulting fire themselves before the fire brigade arrived. Because they may have inhaled smoke during the effort, they were taken to hospital for checks.

“It concerns a light form of smoke intoxication, but it is still important that people be checked for a moment,” said Kim Bastiaens, a spokesperson for the Antwerp local police.

The judicial laboratory and DOVO, the Belgian military bomb disposal unit, attended the scene to examine the explosive and any other traces. “The motive of the attack is still under investigation. At this moment no suspects have been arrested,” VRT NWS reported, citing police.

The Latest in a Wave of Attacks

The Luchtbal blast is the third explosive attack in Antwerp in little more than a week, deepening concern about a fresh wave of violence in the city.

In the early hours of 22 September, two explosive devices detonated minutes apart in Antwerpen-Noord — first at a front door on the Hollandstraat, then at a nearby home on the Osystraat. Two houses and a car were damaged, and nobody was injured. According to VRT NWS, police said the same message was left on both facades, indicating the attacks were linked. The Osystraat house had also been targeted in a heavy attack in April 2023 that damaged about 20 homes and six cars in four surrounding streets.

Five days later, on the night of 27 September, another device exploded at an apartment building near the city park. As VRT NWS reported, the glass front door was destroyed and a graffiti message — “Rassul hoer” — appeared to target an individual. No one was injured in either of those earlier incidents, and no suspects have been arrested in connection with them.

A Long-Running Pattern

Antwerp has been at the centre of a violent conflict between rival drug trafficking gangs, tied largely to cocaine flows through the Port of Antwerp-Bruges. Since around March 2018, the city has experienced recurring explosions — often using heavy fireworks, cobra firecrackers, grenades, or improvised devices — along with shootings, arson, and intimidation attacks targeting homes and individuals.

Police have repeatedly declined to rule out a link to the drug milieu in the recent cases. After the Antwerpen-Noord blasts, Bastiaens said “a link with the drug milieu is not excluded,” while noting that no suspect had been arrested. VRT NWS observed that such explosions “can often be linked to the drug milieu,” though whether the September incidents are connected to one another remains unknown.

In the Luchtbal case, a toddler was among those taken to hospital — a reminder of the risk such attacks pose to bystanders who are not their intended targets.

What’s Next

Investigators are examining the explosive and other traces recovered from the Columbiastraat scene, but no arrests have been made and the motive remains unclear. For residents of Luchtbal, the immediate concern is the same one that has shadowed Antwerp for years: whether this attack is an isolated case or part of an escalating pattern. The city’s authorities will be under pressure to answer that question — and to show that the wave of recent blasts is being brought under control.