Authorities are searching for an armed man in Belgium, who is on the terror watch list due to his extreme right sympathies.
The man, who has a military background, has threatened several people, including a top virologist working to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hunt entered its second day on Wednesday, for the man who Belgian justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne described as an “acute threat”.
Earlier this month he threatened a number of people, one of them Marc Van Ranst, one of the best-known virologists in the country.
Van Ranst wrote on Twitter early on Wednesday that “being against COVID measures and COVID vaccines all too often coincides with aggression of violence and raw racism”, adding “let one thing be clear: such threats do not make the slightest impression on me.”
Van Ranst and his family have been taken to a safe location until the man is apprehended.
According to multiple Belgian news sources the man was said to be armed with a rocket launcher, a machine gun and a pistol.
His name wasn’t disclosed by police, in line with Belgian privacy rules.
The search was centering on the northeastern part of Belgium in Limburg province.
