Around 300 people gathered in Antwerp for the funeral of Jidel, the nine-year-old boy who died yesterday after being hit by a police vehicle.
His family are members of the Orthodox Jewish community, whose custom is to bury the deceased as soon as possible, preferably within 24 hours of death.
Around 300 people gathered near the scene of the accident, close to the boy's school. “When the hearse arrived, you could see the enormous grief. Nobody expects to lose a child so young, of course,” said VRT NWS journalist Hilde Mertens.
After the prayer, the hearse left for Putte in the Netherlands, where Jidel will be buried.
Jidel was hit by a police van responding to an emergency call at around 9.45 on Wednesday morning in Provinciestraat. Emergency services tried to resuscitate him, but he died at the scene.
The exact circumstances of the accident are still being investigated by Comité P, the agency that oversees the Belgian police. The 25-year-old driver of the police van was given a drugs and alcohol test, both of which were negative. A traffic expert has been appointed by the public prosecutor’s office.
“I can still hear the terrible crash,” said Soraya Hasnouni-Alaoui, who runs a fish shop on the zebra crossing where the child was hit. She was arriving at her shop with groceries when the accident happened. “I was just opening my door when I heard a terrible loud bang,” she said.
She turned around to see what had happened and heard a woman screaming further down the road. “When I looked in that direction, I saw a police officer performing CPR on a young boy. I went a little closer to see what had happened, but I was in complete shock.”