On Monday morning police inspector Jorge Carreira Monteiro of the Brussels Capital-Elsene Local Police Service embarked on what was to have been a 328km run between Arlon, in the south of Luxembourg Province and the West Flemish coastal city of Ostend. The trans-Belgium run is in honour of police officers that are injured while on duty. In the Brussels Capital-Elsene Local Police Service alone an average of 1 police office is injured every day while at work. Unfortunately, Jorge Carreira Monteiro became ill two days into what was to have been a four-day run. However, his colleagues are continuing the run between Brussels and Ostend.
Police officers run from Arlon to Ostend to honour colleagues injured while on duty
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Police Inspector Jorge Carreira Monteiro of the Brussels Capital-Elsene Local Police Service had planned to run between Arlon (Luxembourg Province) and Ostend (West Flanders) in four days. The run from one end of Belgium to the other is designed to draw attention to the work that the country’s police officers do every day. Inspector Carreira Monteiro believes that this is often undervalued.
The idea was to run from the police station in Arlon to the police station in Ostend, the two police stations in Belgium that are the furthest away from each other.
On Wednesday morning Inspector Carreira Monteiro arrived at the Wall of Memory for deceased police officers near to the Congress Column in the centre of Brussels. However, he hadn’t run all the way as he had become ill after getting drenched during a storm while he was running through the Ardennes. "I had to stop just before Rixensart (around 20km southeast of Brussels). I had a very high temperature and I felt that my body could no longer continue”.
Nevertheless, he had already run 164km through at times very hilly terrain. A colleague took over from him to continue the run from Rixensart.
Solidarity
"Thanks to the solidarity among police officers the flag I was carrying will reach Ostend. Officers from other local police services are now mobilised to pass on the flag."
The flag will arrive in Deinze (East Flanders) on Wednesday evening. On Thursday the last stage of the run, between Deinze and Ostend will be completed. Officers from the Ostend Local Police Service will complete the final kilometres of the run between Bruges and Ostend. Inspector Carreira Monteiro’s flag is expected to arrive in Ostend sometime between 3pm and 5pm on Thursday afternoon.