Six people were injured, two of them seriously, in a knife attack during a Kurdish demonstration in Antwerp on Thursday evening, Belgian police said.
Four suspects have been arrested, and an investigation into attempted murder has been opened. A second demonstration planned for Friday has been cancelled out of respect for the victims.
The attack took place shortly after 7 p.m. on Operaplein, outside the Antwerp Opera House, where around 300 people had gathered for a demonstration in support of Kurds in northeastern Syria. According to police cited by De Standaard, the protest had been peaceful and was already dispersing when the violence broke out.
“All six victims suffered stab wounds,” Antwerp police spokesman Wouter Bruyns said, as reported by RTL. Four of the injured were found on Operaplein, while two others were located near Rooseveltplaats and Sint-Elisabethstraat. “Two of them are in critical condition,” he added. All victims were taken to the hospital.
🇧🇪🚨 Six people have been stabbed at a Kurdish rally in Antwerp, two of whom are in a serious condition in hospital.
Four suspects have been arrested, and an investigation into attempted murder has been opened.
NavBel, the council of Kurdish communities in Belgium, said the… pic.twitter.com/neW31KQrlf
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) January 22, 2026Emergency services arrived with several medical teams, and police officers who were already present at the demonstration were able to intervene quickly and provide first aid. Four suspects were arrested at the scene. Bruyns said investigators were still working to determine the exact number of attackers and their motives and were reviewing CCTV footage.
NavBel, the council of Kurdish communities in Belgium, said in a statement that the demonstration had taken place “peacefully and without incident,” with families, women, young people, and children present. “As the gathering was dispersing, the Kurdish demonstrators were attacked by a group of men,” the organization said. “These men had infiltrated the demonstration and suddenly pulled out knives,” stabbing protesters “indiscriminately.”
“People were running in every direction; it was pure chaos,” one eyewitness told Gazet van Antwerpen. Another witness said a group passing by suddenly pulled out knives and began stabbing people who were sitting on the steps of the opera house.
NavBel said that three of the injured were Kurds and announced that a further demonstration scheduled for Friday in Antwerp had been cancelled “out of respect for the victims and in order to preserve serenity.”
The demonstration had been organized to draw attention to the situation in northeastern Syria, where the Islamist government army has moved against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the autonomous region of Rojava. Orhan Kilic, a spokesperson for NavBel, said fears of new human rights violations against Kurds were high, citing the background of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Kilic described the Antwerp stabbing as a “terrorist attack” and urged police to treat it as such. “There were flags, emblems, and so on,” he said. “It clearly involved Kurds who support the SDF.”
Current Syrian President Al-Sharaa, also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani (al-Julani), was the former leader of the Sunni Islamist militant group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham. Protesters say he is responsible for massacres and the displacement of civilians during the civil war
Protesters have also stated that minorities, including Kurds, Alevis, Alawites, and Christians, remain under acute threat in Syria.
