Soon after the attack, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel wrote on his twitter account: “I strongly condemn the attack in Charleroi”.
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Police received a call at around 6:20am local time (5:20am United Kingdom time) on Sunday morning saying there was a man with a machete in the Carre neighbourhood of the north-eastern city.
Two police officers in Belgium were wounded today by a machete-wielding attacker who shouted “Allah Akhbar” outside a police station, Belgian officials said.
Police secure the area around a police building in Charleroi following the machete attack on 6 August 2016.
A large security perimeter has been set up around the site of the attack in the city 50km south of Brussels.
Michel’s spokesman, Barend Leyts, says the independent OCAM agency that assesses risks to Belgium’s internal security was consulted and made a decision to keep the current threat level unchanged.
Islamist bombers killed 32 people in suicide attacks at Brussels airport and a metro station in March.
The assailant was shot by a third officer and later died of his wounds, authorities said. Interior Minister Jan Jambon said the assault was a “despicable act”.
“We know we must be constantly, constantly vigilant”, Michel said.
Michel said prosecutors are expected to release information about the Charleroi attacker later Sunday.
Belgium has been at Level 3 on a four-point terrorism alert scale since the attacks in Paris on November 13 that killed 130 victims. Most of those attacks took place in France and Germany and have been claimed by the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.
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According to Belgian newspaper Le Soir, the attacker came to a checkpoint of the police station at 3:58 p.m.(1358 GMT) local time.
