BRUSSELS: Three people were killed and one badly injured in a shoot-out on Saturday at the Jewish Museum in Brussels city centre, Belga news agency said.

A Jewish community figure, Joel Rubinfeld, said it clearly “is a terrorist act” as a man had been seen driving up and entering the museum before opening fire inside and running off.

Rubinfeld, who heads the country’s anti-Semitic League, said the act was the result of “a climate of hate.” “I am shocked by the murders committed at the Jewish museum, I am thinking of the victims I saw there and their families,” Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said on Twitter.

A bystander, Alain Sobotik, said he had seen the minister at the scene.

No information was immediately available from police on the circumstances of the shoot-out but Sobotik said he saw the corpses of a young woman and a man just inside the doors of the museum.

A picture shows them lying in pools of blood.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium, which was not answering calls, is located in the heart of the Sablon district which is home to the city’s top antique dealers. Police quickly cordoned off the area.

The La Libre newspaper said on its website that an Audi had driven up and parked outside the museum, and that both a passenger and the driver had gotten out.—AFP

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2014