Belgium yesterday marked 10 years since the 2016 jihadist bombings in Brussels, a trauma that still scars the country and that authorities said sharpened focus on intelligence and counterterrorism.
The March 22, 2016, attacks claimed by the Islamic State group left 32 people dead and more than 300 wounded — Belgium’s worst peacetime massacre.
Survivors — watched on by Belgian Prime Minister Bart de Wever, King Phillipe and Queen Mathilde — recounted the harrowing scenes they witnessed that morning, as the remembrance ceremonies began just before 8am at Brussels Airport in Zaventem. The proceedings were set to arrive an hour later at the Maelbeek metro station, also targeted in the coordinated suicide blasts that ripped through the Belgian capital, before culminating at a monument in memory of the victims in central Brussels.
Photo: AP
“Telling you that living this life is easy would be a lie. I wake up every day with the memories of horror. I look at my body that has been burnt, bruised and torn apart,” said Beatrice de Lavalette, who lost her legs at the airport.
“Every day, I remember lying on this floor bleeding out, and in that moment I remember telling myself: ‘This is not my time. I will not die here,’” said Lavalette, who became a Paralympic horse rider after the tragedy.
The Brussels attacks were the work of the same jihadist cell that struck Paris just months earlier on Nov. 13, 2015, killing 130 people. Having retreated to Brussels safe houses, the jihadists mounted a hastily organized attack in the days after the March 18 arrest of Salah Abdeslam, the only surviving member of the Paris attack group.
On March 22, a Tuesday morning, three suicide bombers detonated their explosives, first at Zaventem and then at a packed metro station close to the seat of EU institutions.
The commemorations take place as the war in the Middle East has heightened concerns about possible new attacks.
This month, a pre-dawn blast damaged a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, causing no injuries. Over the border, the Netherlands was later hit by two similar incidents targeting the Jewish community.
In Belgium, the threat level remains “serious” at three on a scale of four, following an October 2023 attack in Brussels that saw a gunman shoot dead two Swedish football fans.
Belgium was criticized for security failings in the run-up to the 2016 bombings, something Belgian Coordinating Body for Threat Analysis (OCAM) head Gert Vercauteren said he remembers well.
“It’s a feeling of failure that obviously hit us all,” he said.
In the aftermath of the bombings, the Belgian government was left reeling. Two Belgian ministers offered their resignations after Turkey said Belgium had ignored warnings from Ankara, which had deported airport bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui in 2015 following his arrest near the Syrian border.
Belgium’s justice system, police and intelligence services said they have significantly improved information sharing.
The number of state security service staff has increased from 600 to 950 agents in a decade.
The shared database on extremist profiles was “a major step forward,” Vercauteren said.
The database, which all security services, including municipal police forces working with community outreach staff, could access and contribute to, is constantly updated. Last year, it contained 555 names “under priority monitoring,” 86 percent of whom were flagged for “Islamist extremism,” OCAM said.
However, some victims said that even 10 years after the attacks, they are still unable to have their physical or psychological injuries recognized, limiting their right to compensation.
“Many victims and many relatives feel abandoned. This is a struggle for recognition and financial justice,” said Edmond Pinczowski, who lost his two adult children at the airport.
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