after the killings in Loon-Plage and Wormhout, strong emotion spreads across the municipalities

Five people were killed this Saturday, December 14 in Loon-Plage and Wormhout (North). A man, the alleged perpetrator, went to the police after the incident. After this killing, emotions are running high in the affected communities.

At the Wormhout Christmas market (North), the setting is festive, but the atmosphere is heavy this Sunday, December 15. The day before, a man was shot dead in the town before the alleged perpetrator attacked four other victims in Loon-Plage.

The dramas of this Saturday are fueling discussions. “Nothing ever happens, and then…” whispers a resident. “I imagine the family who must have arrived just before the holidays,” laments a second. “It’s traumatic, it’s horrible.”

Most residents and traders learned the news on social networks this Saturday. Almost 24 hours after the fact, they are still struggling to realize it. “It’s amazement, astonishment,” confides Sophie, business manager. “In these kinds of towns, that’s not the kind of thing that happens.”

“We imagined ourselves far from these tragedies”

“We are a small town of 5,000 inhabitants, we imagined ourselves far from all these dramas and these terrible situations and in fact no, anything can happen”, testifies a resident of the town.

These tragedies plunge the municipality of Wormhout into the unknown and fear. “As mayor, we are a little helpless in the face of these difficult situations, underlines David Calcoen, councilor of Wormhout. It is incomprehensible and unthinkable, we have the impression of only seeing this in the films and in fact, it “is at our doors, within our walls, we cannot imagine it.”

Shortly after the shooting, the alleged perpetrator went to the gendarmerie in Ghyvelde, near the Belgian border. He was arrested and taken into police custody. In Wormhout, the person who was killed is, according to the Departmental Fire and Rescue Service (Sdis) of the North, a 29-year-old man. He was found “inanimate on a public road and lying with a bullet hole” and died on the spot.

According to his lawyer, the suspect, aged 22, is called Paul D. He is unknown to the police and the judicial authority, according to the prosecutor, who added that several rifle-type weapons had been found in his car.