Hundreds of migrants are living in the Belgian capital, many of whom arrived in Europe after fleeing violence in Sudan a year ago.
The revelation comes amid continued EU infighting over how to replace the bloc’s Dublin regulation, which states the country in which an asylum seeker arrives is supposed to be responsible for processing their application.
Some Sudanese migrants told the New York Times they have been injured by Belgian police officers.
Hamza Khater said: “I am afraid here.
“Because I don’t have an education, I don’t have money, I don’t speak French.
“Belgium doesn’t understand the politics of Sudan; if I ask asylum here, Belgium may send me back to Italy immediately, or worse, even to Khartoum.”
The 31-year-old is one of around 500 migrants who are able to avoid the sub-zero nighttime temperatures at one of the city’s volunteer-run shelters.
But migrants are becoming increasingly visible in public spaces in Brussels and are sometimes forced to sleep on the streets.
And while hundreds of Belgian families have offered to help by inviting migrants into their homes, police in the city have been accused of using heavy-handed tactics.
Mr Khater said: “Why aren’t the police kind to us? “I am running for my life. I did do nothing wrong. I don’t understand the politics here.”
Mehdi Kassou, who helps organise the volunteer shelters, said “certain officers in certain towns, not all police” could be “pretty violent with migrants.”
He said: “We very regularly have people who enter with wounds, even bites from police dogs.”
A spokeswoman for the Belgian police insisted officers treated migrants in “a very empathic and humane way”.
But she added: “It is possible that during certain operations, for instance when people fiercely resist police actions, officers use force, but in proportion.”
Under the EU’s controversial Dublin regulation, asylum seekers are supposed to register in the first country they arrive in, but some migrants choose to move on.
The policy has led to friction between member states located on the edges of the bloc, such as Italy, Greece and Spain, which have been faced with processing more applications than nations further from the borders with Africa and Asia.
EU officials have floated the idea of mandatory quotas, where migrants would be re-homed across the whole bloc, but European Council President Donald Tusk previously admitted the issue “has proven to be highly divisive and the approach has turned out to be ineffective”.