Toddler dies in police shootout as her refugee family tries to reach Britain

James Crisp
Updated
Mawda was said to have been hit by a stray bullet in the cheek 
Mawda was said to have been hit by a stray bullet in the cheek

A two-year-old refugee has died after she was accidentally shot while being held out of the window of a van full of migrants attempting to escape Belgian police and reach Britain.

The girl, who has been named as Mawda, was hit by a stray bullet in the cheek after a chase involving road blockades and 15 police cars near the city of Tournai in Belgium on Thursday.  She died shortly afterwards.

She was held out of the broken rear window of the Peugeot Boxer van to force officers to break off their pursuit, which began at 2am local time after officers flagged down the driver.

The van, which had 26 adults and four children inside, stopped at one point in the chase. As police approached, the driver tried to run over officers, who opened fire, before later crashing the van into another vehicle.

It is not clear if the driver, suspected of being a people smuggler, is among those arrested or if he or she has escaped.

Friends of the toddler’s Iraqi-Kurdish family told the Guardian Mawda was trying to reach Britain with her parents and three-year-old brother. The family had recently been deported to Germany from Belgium but returned illegally in an effort to get to the UK.

Tournai prosecutors have begun an investigation in the police actions but the probe’s initial results seemed to show officers had acted correctly.

“When the policemen got out and walked to the van with drawn weapons, the driver hit the throttle again and tried to knock down the cops. The officers felt threatened and fired several shots,” said Frederic Bariseau, of the prosecutor’s office.

Jan Jambon, Belgium’s minister of internal affairs, said he wanted to wait for the final findings of the investigation. He mentioned “the troubling conditions in which human smuggling thrives”.

He also praised police, who he said had done their job “and have to fight every day against human smuggling”.

The incident was criticised by NGOs in Belgium, which has faced criticism recently for its tough stance towards migrants.