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A DUTCH BROTHER and sister, a Chinese national and a British man have today been confirmed as being among the 31 people killed in Tuesday’s bomb attacks at Brussels airport and the metro system.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said that a number of Americans died in the attacks, which were claimed by the Islamic State jihadi group.
Kerry did not give a figure but a US official separately said two US citizens had been confirmed dead.
As forensic experts continued to sift through evidence, the Dutch foreign ministry announced that a brother and sister who lived in the United States and a woman from the central Dutch city of Deventer were among the victims.
“Our thoughts are with their relatives and friends,” Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in a statement issued in The Hague.
It’s awful that these people were killed by a random act of terror.
Dutch public newscaster NOS later named the brother and sister as Alexander Pinczowski and Sascha Pinczowski, both 21, who lived in New York.
A Dutch newspaper said they were on the telephone to a relative when the bombs went off and the line went dead.
NOS named the other Dutch victim as Elita Weah, 41, who was on her way to her stepfather’s funeral in the US.
‘Devastating news’
Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed that computer programmer David Dixon, 51, from Hartlepool in northern England, but who lived in Brussels, had died in the metro attack.
“We know of seven British nationals who were injured in the attacks -– three are still being treated in hospital,” the ministry said in a statement.
His family issued a statement calling the news “terrible and devastating”.
Dixon texted his aunt after the airport blasts to say he was safe, but happened to be on the metro system when a suicide bomber blew himself up.
A Chinese national was also among those killed, the Chinese embassy in Belgium confirmed today.
“We express deep condolences over the death of our Chinese compatriot and strong condemnation on the criminal act of the terrorists,” the Chinese embassy posted on its website.
The family of 21-year-old Bart Migom, who was travelling to see his American girlfriend, had declared him missing, and the Belgian college where he was a student said he was one of the victims.
Along with the 31 dead, 300 were injured, 61 critically.
Identification is proving slow, complicated by the violence of the explosions and because many of the victims were foreigners, police told RTBF television.
Facebook appeal
Around 40 nationalities are thought to be among the dead and wounded.
Their diverse backgrounds reflect the cosmopolitan nature of Brussels, Europe’s symbolic capital.
Some 30 specialists, including the seven permanent Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team experts, are working to identify the bodies or remains of victims recovered from the attack scenes.
A Facebook page where worried relatives, friends and colleagues can post notices of the missing has been set up. Pictures already uploaded show men and women, young and old, from Belgium and across the globe.
Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa announced yesterday that Jimmy Montenegro, 37, from the northern city of Ibarra, was in a “very serious” condition after being caught in the metro blast.
Dixon’s identification brings the number of officially named fatalities to four.
Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, a 37-year-old Peruvian woman who lived in Belgium, was killed in the airport blasts, the foreign ministry in Lima confirmed.
Another victim was Belgian civil servant Olivier Delespesse, according to his employer.
He was killed in the metro attack, local media reported, along with 20-year-old Belgian law student Leopold Hecht, who was named by his university.
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The situation in NI is way worse than we have down here, even the figures in hospitels and ICY are simuler eventhough we have 2.61 more in population.
There have been
32,286 confirmed cases, – that equivalent in the ROI- 84266
6,893 in the last seven days. – that equivalent in the ROI would be 17,991
They are complaining about it, if we had them figures down here we would be all locked in our houses.
@Declan Sweeney: ok yea
@Declan Sweeney: Just to comment, I don’t necessarily think ‘cases’ is a good measure of how well a country is performing. For example, we have exponentially increased our testing rates, which has subsequently led to an increased number in cases. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we are currently losing this covid battle, if anything, its a major improvement.
Better measures of how well a country is responding would be mortality and hospital/ICU numbers
@Bobby: But yet retail is still open! Unbelievable!
@Bobby:
Yess and with NI they have 2 figures for deaths,
DOH says they have had 639 deaths from the viris but that only counts for those who die in hospitels mostly
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\the stats office who deals with in hospitels, home, nursing homes and other places put the amount of deats up to Oct. 9th at 902 cases, so when they release the figures again that would be more than likely alot higher.
Numbers in hospitels and in ICU are both very high taking into consideration that we have 2.61 times the population
Sinn Fein complaining about possibly fines in the South, unwilling to tell people to stay in the North during these unprecedented times
@Michael Keegan:
According to themselves they are 2 different parties, SF in NI and SF in the ROI
God that’s awful and it only accounts for 6 counties yet they’re higher than the Republic. I don’t understand it, unless they’re popping back and forth from England
@Anna Carr: if you think people in NI constantly travelling back and forth to England is the issue then yes, you are correct. You do not understand it.
@Dermy: You obviously don’t know about the secret tunnel we have? Oh oh. This message will self distruct in 3……2…..
This debate should of happened in February.
The reason it didn’t was because of vested interests.
have your say