+ 23/01 Dendermonde 10:00 a.m.

What started out as a quiet day, with a sick munchkin, quickly turned into disaster on a massive scale. My SO's phone bleeped, and as she read out the message and tried to make sense of it, we realised right there and then, as we did a few years back on 30/07/2004 that this day would go to pot.

In 2004, on my birthday, a gas line blew up in a little town off Brussels and several people died, as a result of a series of errors. I spent the whole day behind my laptop and on the phone, 7 months pregnant, trying to assist her with directions, names, information, buying photos, etc.

Today, a 20-year old, his face painted like that of the Joker in the Dark Knight, entered a daycare facility in Dendermonde, near Ghent, and took it upon himself to stab every baby and caregiver in sight. At the time of the stabbing, there were 18 children in the daycare facility. Two children died, both under a year old, and one caregiver as she tried to defend them. The five remaining caregivers, of which two are in a critical condition, all sustained wounds as they tried to protect their charges. Of the 18 children, two tonight lie in a morgue, while four others still fight for their life. Another six have also been operated on but are stable.

Heath Ledger died on 22/01/08.

It was later established that the assailant, who was arrested an hour later, was a psychiatric outpatient, and that he had the addresses of several other daycare facilities on him.

My heart goes out tonight to the parents who have to face an empty cot tonight, who dropped their child off this morning in a safe, relatively quiet little village, in a daycare centre that they trusted. I also think of the family of the caretaker, a grandmother/godmother to a little girl named Tabitha. And tonight I hugged our munchkin, in the knowledge that I would not be able to have a single restful night, until the day that I died, because I realise at this point, in this mad world, that nothing I do or think or say will be able to protect her from acts of insanity such as this one.

I leave you with some of the photos that my SO took today...

The last photo was taken by her colleague. The number on the baby's forehead was put there by the emergency services, who also took photos of all the children, in order to match up children and their parents at the crisis centre and then be able to dispatch them to the hospital where their child was taken.

A little candle burns in my heart tonight for those who are no longer with us...

The assailant has refused all cooperation with the police. He apparently laughs at them...