This Friday evening, we showed you a staggering investigation into the infamous “drug tunnel” in Liège. We saw drug addicts injecting themselves in the street, and sometimes even engaging in sexual relations in full view of everyone. This afternoon, we will try to understand how we got here, by giving a voice to the associations who work on a daily basis with these drug addicts, and who are overwhelmed by the situation.
Liège, a city where drug addicts inject their products on the street, in broad daylight, in tunnels or directly on the banks of the Meuse.
At the end of the month, it will no longer be possible for them to obtain new and sterile equipment allowing safe consumption. The shooting room, as it is called, will be open only for care and administrative procedures.
A situation denounced by around thirty employees. “The ones we see more are just the tip of the iceberg. So they are more visible for a whole series of reasons. It’s clear that there was the problem of the consumption room, which unfortunately is in the process of closing and which, if it really fulfills its missions, I think, can help to reduce this feeling of insecurity that this type of drug addiction can provide. explains Magali Crollard, psychologist at the ALFA center.
The phenomenon of drug addiction in Liège is not new, but it has been increasing in recent years. In the streets, social distress is present.
Laura, at 32, this mother, never dared to cross the door of the drug consumption room. “I don’t go there, precisely because of the stress. When we are in our world, we are stressed and it can quickly go away. There are some who have already overdosed there”, she tells us.
Prevention, care and risk reduction. To activate these plans, the association which manages the shooting room depends on nine different subsidies, often granted late. Today, she is even forced to go into debt to survive.
“We have still not received our 2024 advance even though it is November. We are therefore obliged to take out significant loans from banks, just to be able to assume our daily operating costs and pay salaries”specifies Pauline Aprile, coordinator at the ALFA center.
There are more than 4,000 drug addicts in the province of Liège, half of them in the Cité Ardente alone. Which earned Liège the unenvious nickname “Tox City”.
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