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Deadly attack in Belgium ignites fierce debate on failures of deportation policy_我的网站
一 | BRUSSELS -- The alleged attacker who killed two Swedish soccer fans in Brussels this week before he was shot dead by police was residing in Belgium illegally and should have left the country three years ago, but never did.In a country that has been repeatedly rocked by extremist attacks, the government’s inability to deport the 45-year-old Tunisian national and prevent him from carrying out the attack is sparking a fierce political debate.Many questions remained unanswered as Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson traveled to Brussels on Wednesday to attend a ceremony paying tribute to the victims and meet his Belgian counterpart Alexander De Croo. How was a man who was on police files, thought to be radicalized and being sought for deportation, able to remain on Belgian soil? How did he obtain a semiautomatic rifle and launch such an attack?Investigators are still trying to determine the motive for Monday night’s attack, which happened not far from where Belgium’s men’s soccer team was hosting Sweden in a European Championships qualifier. It was the latest of a long list of extremist attacks to hit Belgium, including suicide bombings in 2016 that killed 32 people and injured hundreds more in the Brussels subway and airport.Authorities believe the suspect acted alone.Sweden raised its terror alert to the second-highest level in August after a series of public Quran burnings by an Iraqi refugee living in Sweden resulted in threats from Islamic militant groups. Asked if this might be a possible motive in this week's attack, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said it was too early to tell.Put on the backfoot by political rivals quick to condemn the inadequacies of Belgium’s deportation policy, De Croo stressed that orders to quit the Belgian territory need to be better enforced.“An order to leave the territory must become more binding than it is now,” he said. “The people who are not entitled to protection should leave the territory.” “When two people die, the only thing you can say is that things have gone wrong,” De Croo added.He also called for better protection of the European Union's external borders and coordinated return policies across the 27-nation bloc.Kristersson said he did not blame Belgian authorities for their failure to send the suspect back to his country of origin because “we have exactly the same problem in Sweden, with very many people who are declined asylum but refuse to leave.”According to Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, the suspect was denied asylum in 2020. He had been suspected of involvement in human trafficking, living illegally in Belgium and of being a risk to state security.Nicole de Moor, the secretary of state for asylum and migration, said Belgian authorities had lost track of the suspect after his asylum application was refused because he did not want to be housed in a reception center. Authorities were unable to locate him to organize his deportation.Governments critics, however, pointed out that police were able to quickly find his address and carry out raids at his Brussels flat after the attack. Belgium’s federal prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw said the shooter was recognized by the video and that people helped to identify the suspect and to track him down.Bernard Clerfayt, a Brussels minister who is also the mayor of the Brussels borough where the killings took place, called for the resignation of de Moor, the migration secretary.“There are thousands and thousands of orders to leave the country that have not been carried out, and what’s more, the procedure makes no provision for tracking down the addresses of all these people,” Clerfayt told La Premiere radio on Wednesday.Van Leeuw, the prosecutor, said Belgian authorities didn’t have much indication about the suspect’s radicalization. They received some intelligence from an unidentified foreign government in 2016 that the man had been radicalized but could not act on it because Belgian authorities were not able to establish it, he said. They saw no signs of radicalization since then. “Radicalization is not a crime either,” he said.Jesper Tengroth, a spokesman for the Swedish Migration Agency, told Swedish public radio that the suspected gunman lived in Sweden from 2012 to 2014 and spent part of that time in prison before being sent to another EU country.Official figures showed that only 5,497 of the 25,292 people who received an order to leave Belgium in 2022 have respected it. According to various estimates, some 150,000 people are currently residing illegally in Belgium. On average in the European Union, only around one in three people whose asylum applications fail ever actually leave. Forced deportations have a dark history in Belgium. In 1998, Samira Adamu, a Nigerian asylum seeker whose application had been rejected, was suffocated to death by security officials on her plane back to Africa after she tried to resist her deportation. The interior minister at the time resigned over the scandal.Theo Francken, a lawmaker from the right-wing Flemish nationalist party N-VA, said Belgian authorities should be stricter with criminals and radicalized individuals. “This must really be the government’s focus. It’s a big mistake not to have done this,” he said.Meanwhile, Swedish public broadcaster SVT identified one of the victims as Patrick Lundström, a 60-year-old who was described by his family as an “incurable football fan” who followed the national team through good times and bad times.The fact that the shooter used a semiautomatic rifle highlighted another serious issue for Belgium — the widespread circulation of weapons in a country that struggles to fight fierce drug trafficking.“Because of drug crime, there is a lot of demand for these kinds of weapons,” Nils Duquet, the director of the Flemish Peace Institute and a weapons expert, told VRT News. "It’s not only serious criminals who get hold of these kinds of weapons these days, but also more minor ones.”___Raf Casert in Brussels contributed.。 WASHINGTON -- An African American combat medic who was wounded while landing on Omaha Beach during the D-Day invasion but went on to tend to dozens of troops will be posthumously honored Wednesday in a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery. His family and supporters continue to push for an even higher recognition they believe his heroism is owed.Cpl. Waverly B. Woodson Jr. was a 21-year-old Army medic assigned to the only African American combat unit to land in Normandy on June 6, 1944. His landing craft took heavy fire and he was wounded before even getting to the beach, but for the next 30 hours he treated 200 wounded men while under intense small arms and artillery fire before collapsing from his injuries and blood loss, according to accounts of his service.Woodson, who was born in Philadelphia and lived in Maryland with his wife, died in 2005. He spoke to The Associated Press in 1994 about his harrowing journey.“The tide brought us in, and that’s when the 88s hit us,” he said of the German 88mm guns. “They were murder. Of our 26 Navy personnel there was only one left. They raked the whole top of the ship and killed all the crew. Then they started with the mortar shells.”He survived and was awarded the Bronze Star, but by the time the award was finalized he was in Hawaii preparing for the invasion of Japan so there was little in the way of ceremony. And he was never awarded a Combat Medic Badge, which denotes that a medic has been in combat. To rectify that wrong, his former unit applied for Woodson to receive the badge and it was approved in August.His widow, Joann, and his son, Steve, will be presented with both honors during the ceremony at Arlington, where Woodson is buried.“He truly was a hero on Omaha Beach," said Capt. Kevin Braafladt, the historian for First Army. Woodson's unit, the 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion, was part of First Army during the invasion of Nazi-occupied France. The battalion was responsible for setting up explosive-rigged balloons to deter enemy planes.At a time when the U.S. military was still segregated by race, about 2,000 African American troops are believed to have taken part in the invasion. The balloon battalion was the only African American combat unit.Woodson's supporters have been pushing for years to see him awarded the Medal of Honor for his exploits during the invasion that was key to turning the tide in the war. Although 1.2 million Black Americans served in the military during World War II, none was among the original recipients of the Medal of Honor awarded in the conflict. The Army commissioned a study in the early 1990s to analyze whether Black troops had been unjustly overlooked during an era of widespread racism and segregation in the military. Ultimately, seven Black World War II troops were awarded the Medal of Honor in 1997.At the time, Woodson's case was part of the study and the authors interviewed him. But, they wrote, his decoration case file couldn't be found and his personnel records destroyed in a 1973 fire at a military records facility. Braafladt said the U.S. military made a conscious effort to reduce paperwork after the war, and that the fire at a military records facility in Missouri also destroyed countless documents.His supporters aren't giving up. First Army and Braafladt have been on a mission to document Woodson's actions on D-Day in hopes of getting the Medal of Honor for him. Braafladt is convinced — “100%” — that Woodson was recommended at the time of the war for the Medal of Honor.One of the pieces of information pointing to that conclusion is a memo talking about how Woodson had been recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross but a top general decided the recommendation should be for the Medal of Honor instead.Braafladt first heard about Woodson's case around 2020 and has been obsessively searching for documents that will help make Woodson's case. He has not yet found the Medal of Honor recommendation letter, but along the way he has found documents he thinks buttress the case. Just last week he received the text describing Woodson's Bronze Star citation.“I’m one document away from getting an answer here and righting a wrong.” he said.U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland, where Woodson's widow now lives, has also been pushing since 2015 to have Woodson honored with the Medal of Honor, and has introduced legislation to that effect in Congress.Woodson's son said in a telephone interview that his father rarely talked about World War II until late in his life and then only in bits and pieces. The family would like to see him honored with the Medal of Honor not only to shine a spotlight on his heroism but to highlight the efforts of Woodson's unit and all Black troops. Steve Woodson said he'd be disappointed if his father does not get the Medal of Honor, but he's also grateful for all the recognition and honors that have come so far. “If he gets it, that’s fabulous. If he doesn’t, we will just continue to put his legacy forward,” he said.。
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