Police were called to the home of an Angola woman in the city last Thursday, 25 August, after neighbours complained about noise, reporting the woman was arguing loudly with a man inside the house. According to the prosecutor’s office, at least six police officers arrived at the scene. They rang the doorbell but received no answer and decided not to intervene as all was quiet.

The following morning, a local beat officer returned to the house and managed to gain entry. There he found the bodies of the woman’s two sons, age six and seven. Forensic tests revealed they had been beaten to death. The medical examiner also discovered evidence that the children had put up a fight.

It is not known whether the killings took place before the noise incident or after. If the latter, that would suggest that the police might have been able to prevent the deaths if they had reacted more forcefully.

An initial statement from the Dendermonde prosecutor said that the police made no fault in deciding that the reason for them being called out – the noise complaint – was no longer present when they arrived, and that there was no justification for forcing entry to the house. When the police arrived on the scene, a spokesman said, there was no indication of any danger.

The mother of the children has been arrested. According to a psychiatric examination, she is suffering from schizophrenic delusions that her children were vampires and is likely to be pronounced unfit to stand trial by reason of insanity.

· Meanwhile in Kessel, Antwerp province, a woman and her partner have been released on bail after the body of a long-dead newborn was discovered in the building in which the couple were squatting until recently. The woman, 47, admitted that the baby had been stillborn some years ago and claimed that her partner knew nothing about either the pregnancy or the birth. The area around the building, a disused former cinema, is now being searched by the federal police’s victim identification unit. The woman was earlier given a suspended sentence of three years for child neglect leading to the death of another child, who she buried in the garden of her previous home.