Belgians gather despite cancelled march

Hundreds of Belgians gathered Sunday in solidarity and defiance in central Brussels to remember victims of the country's worst-ever terror attacks as prosecutors charged a second man over a foiled attack in France. This despite the fact that organizers of a peace march called it off at the request of the police. 

Police cordon off far-right protesters from a peaceful vigil for the victims of the Brussels attacks Public/Twitter

However, police were forced to fire water cannons at far-right football hooligans who invaded a square and attempted to disrupt the peaceful vigil.

Second man charged, further raids

Police took action after about 200 black-clad hooligans shouting nationalist and anti-immigrant slogans moved in on the Place de la Bourse where people were gathering in a show of solidarity with the victims.

Meanwhile, prosecutors said they had charged a second man with involvement in a terror group over a foiled plot to strike France.
This, as police detained four people for questioning in connection with terrorism after 13 raids Sunday across Brussels and the towns of Duffel and Michelin to the north.

"In connection with the terrorism dossier, 13 raids were carried out this morning... in all nine people were questioned, with five of them later released," the prosecutor said in a statement.

It was the latest piece in the puzzle of the jihadist networks straddling France and Belgium.

The man who was charged, Abderamane A., was the second person to be charged by Brussels prosecutors in as many days in connection with Thursday's arrest of a man in Paris who had assault weapons and explosives in his flat and who was allegedly plotting a new attack in France.

In a bid to allow police to devote all their resources to tracking down the Islamic State cell linked to Tuesday's Brussels attacks and the November carnage in Paris, officials asked organisers to postpone an Easter Sunday march.

28 dead

Elsewhere the Belgian Crisis Centre said 28 people had died in the airport and metro attacks, down from an initial toll of 31 which had included the three suicide bombers.

Of the 28 who died, 24 have been identified, among them 13 Belgians and 11 foreign nationals, it said. A total 340 people from 19 countries were wounded, of whom 101 remain in hospital -- 62 of them in intensive care.

"Not in the name of Islam," read one banner on the columns of the stately former stock exchange building in Brussels city centre where people, some tearful, milled around under the watchful gaze of heavily-armed police and soldiers.

"This is our dream," read another among a sea of flags from all over the world, as the carpet of flowers, candles and messages grew steadily larger.

"I come here every evening and stay here until midnight in a gesture of solidarity," said Mohamed Said Si Ahmed Haddi, 50, a Belgian from Algeria.

"We must not hide away."

In a homily at the nearby medieval cathedral of Saints-Michel-et-Gudule, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Malines-Brussels Jozef de Kesel said the attacks "defy understanding."

"We are confronted with evil on an unimaginable scale which causes so much innocent and useless suffering," the Belga news agency quoted de Kesel as saying.

"Easter celebrates victory over evil," he added.