A ceremony was held on the Hendrik Conscienceplein in Antwerp on Saturday to remember the 46 homeless people that have died on the city’s streets during the past three years.
Homeless people that have died on Antwerp’s streets remembered
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The organiser of Saturday’s remembrance ceremony Jan Wouters told VRT News that “We have established this moment of remembrance for those that have died due to living on the streets. And we have produced a work of art together with homeless people themselves”.
The artwork represents a place where a homeless people would sleep complete with cardboard, a Mexican death altar and a totem pole decorated with the faces of homeless people.
At Saturday's ceremony there was Mexican music. The artist Rebecca Lenaerts explained that this was because of Fransisco Manzano, a man with Mexican roots whose idea it was to make an alter decorated with flowers.
For the time being the work of art will be kept by an organisation that works with minors that are homeless.
Saturday’s ceremony remembered the 46 homeless people that have died on Antwerp’s streets between 2021 and 2023.
“These were not all people from a refugee background. These are people that have fallen into poverty. Some had a life of the streets behind them and then were taken by illness”, Rebecca Lenaerts said.