The family of a Belgian-Tunisian woman found dead in a Brussels police cell deny the official line that she died by suicide and have asked the Tunisian government to conduct its own investigation, openDemocracy has discovered.
Two other people of North African descent died in the same police station in 2021, when the UN expressed concerns about “police-related racial violence” in Belgium.
On 11 January, Sourour Abouda went for lunch and drinks with colleagues at a Portuguese restaurant in Brussels to celebrate the new year. At 8.34am the following day, the 46-year-old social worker and mother was found dead in a police cell.
