Three people were killed and one seriously injured in a spree of gunfire at the Jewish Museum in Brussels on Saturday, officials said. Police detained one suspect who was at the scene and are looking for a second, according to Reuters.
The mid-afternoon attack occurred in the fashionable Sablon area, which was hosting a three-day jazz festival and is usually clogged with tourists and shoppers on weekends, Reuters reported. Police cordoned off several streets around the museum with blue-and-white police tape, and numerous ambulances and police vans were at the scene.
The attack, which came on the eve of national and European Parliament elections, led officials to immediately raise anti-terror measures, Reuters reported.
Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders, who was in the vicinity, said the scene "was terrible and left me shocked" as he saw two of the three dead lying at the entrance of the museum, located in the swanky Sablon neighborhood, according to Reuters.
Reynders added that "you cannot help to think that when we see a Jewish museum, you think of an anti-Semitic act, but the investigation will have to show the causes," Reuters reported.
Interior Minister Joelle Milquet told reporters that the shooter apparently parked a car outside before entering the Jewish Museum, adding that the gunman "apparently fired rather quickly, went outside and left," according to Reuters. Milquet said anti-terror measures were immediately heightened.
The three dead were two women and a man, and they were hit by bullets in the throat and face, said Ine Van Wymersch, spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office, Reuters reported. No further details were given.
Van Wymersch said one suspect was detained after he drove away from the museum around the time of the attack, but a second person suspected of being implicated apparently walked away from the scene, according to Reuters.
European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor said that, even though it has yet to be established whether the attack was anti-Semitic, "we are acutely aware of the permanent threat to Jewish targets in Belgium and across the whole of Europe," Reuters reported.
