Dec 11, 2023 at 1:57 PM Update: an hour ago
Thieves have stolen dozens of copper plates from war graves in Leopoldsburg, Belgium. They are said to have stolen at least 58 nameplates and damaged 76 graves, various Belgian media report.
The theft of the nameplates was discovered last week by guides from the Liberation Garden war museum. The guides pass the military cemetery during their tours.
The guides initially noticed that a few nameplates were missing. They suspected that the plates had been taken by the War Heritage Institute (WHI) for restoration. But later they discovered that many more records were missing.
Some nameplates have not been removed, but are damaged. Those marks were said to have been made with a crowbar.
“The WHI told us that there is a real plague of thefts from graves and that it mainly concerns copper thieves. You can of course find a lot of copper in the cemetery,” councilor Marleen Kauffmann (Heritage) tells VRT NWS. It is also quiet towards the evening, she says. “So that is really an ideal place for those copper thieves to make a lot of loot.”
The Leopoldsburg cemetery contains the graves of soldiers who died in the First and Second World Wars. Copper has also reportedly been stolen from five other cemeteries in recent months.
Image: Hannelore Decoodt, Immovable Heritage Agency
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BelgiumAbroad
2023-12-11 12:57:28
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