DenderMonde, Belgium - Police have charged a 20-year-old Belgian with murder after two infants and a woman were killed and 13 others were wounded in a knife attack at a children's creche that left Belgium stunned.
Local residents, many still mouthing disbelief, on Saturday laid bouquets at the day care centre in the small town of Dendermonde where a man with a white painted face and blackened eyes slashed his victims and then cycled off.
There were 18 children aged up to three years and six adults in the creche at the time of Friday's attack which Le Soir newspaper called an "appalling massacre" of innocents.
The dead were two boys aged six and nine months and a woman child minder, aged 54. Hospital staff said some of the wounded children would require plastic surgery.
The assailant cycled off but was detained soon afterwards at a local shop. Prosecutors said a 20-year-old local man had been charged with triple murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.
The assailant arrived at the Fabeltjesland creche in Dendermonde, 30km west of Brussels at around 10am on Friday saying he wanted to ask a question. But he then ran into the creche's rooms and launched his attacks.
"It's really dreadful," said a town resident, Nicole Verhelst. "Usually you see this kind of thing on TV and you think it's bad, you don't realise, but now when it happens in your own street, so close to us."
"I can't understand why anyone would want to kill small children," one young girl said in Dendermonde where the national flag flew at half mast on Saturday.
Another resident An Verheyden said: "It really hurts. Your child sees what happened on the news. It's bad for them too, when they have small brothers and they hear about it."
"We are bleeding with them"
"We are trying to organise some of our people to say to the families of the victims that we are with them, our hearts are with them and we are bleeding with them," Mayor Piet Buyse said.
Commentators compared the outrage to that caused by the Marc Dutroux paedophile killings a decade ago. Dutroux was convicted of kidnapping and raping six girls and perceived police incompetence provoked mass protests.
No motives for the creche attack were offered. Some Belgian media said a piece of paper had been found in the pocket of the attacker with the address of another day care centre -- suggesting he may have planned more than one attack. Some reports said he was also carrying an axe and a knife and was wearing a bulletproof vest.