Riot police break up illegal party in Brussels park using tear gas and water cannon – video

Clashes erupted as riot police in Belgium used tear gas and water cannon to disperse revellers at an illegal party in Brussels' Bois de la Cambre park.

The event, dubbed 'La Boum 2', was a sequel to the fake festival arranged as an April Fools' Day joke at the same park on 1 April - and was held in defiance of the government's Covid-19 restrictions. A collective called 'L'abime Team', the organiser of the event on social media, unsuccessfully tried to seek permission for the gathering, local media reported.

On 23 April, Belgium pressed ahead with plans to allow restaurant and cafe terraces to reopen on 8 May despite warnings from health officials that hospital saturation was starting to resemble that of Italy at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. From 8 May, up to 50 people will be also allowed to attend an outdoor event. More than 23,000 people out of in Belgium's 11 million population have died of Covid-19, with about 3,500 daily infections