‘All I could do was just wait and pray’: An oral history of the Brussels bombings

10 years ago, terror attacks shook the Belgian capital. Here’s how the day and its aftermath unfolded, in the words of those who lived it.

By SONJA RIJNEN and SEBASTIAN STARCEVIC

Illustration by Patrik Svensson for POLITICO

On March 22, 2016, just before 8 a.m. on an ordinary weekday morning, two explosions ripped through the departure hall of the main international airport in Brussels. The nail-packed bombs shredded flesh and blew off limbs as flaming tiles rained down from the ceiling.

About an hour later, across town, a third detonation took out a train carriage at a metro station in the city’s European Quarter.

Tensions and security measures in Brussels had been escalating since coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks had killed more than 130 people in Paris four months earlier, including 90 at a rock concert in the Bataclan theater.

Belgian officials had warned of possible strikes just days before, after raids in Brussels led to the capture of key suspects linked to the deadly assaults in neighboring France.

A decade on, POLITICO spoke with politicians, emergency service officials, journalists, survivors and their families about that fateful morning, reconstructing a timeline of the Brussels bombings and the painful days that followed.

*The following interviews were conducted in English, French and Dutch. They have been translated, edited and condensed for clarity.

At Zaventem airport

At 7:58 a.m., two suicide bombers detonated explosives, nine seconds apart, in the crowded departure hall.

Karen Northshield, American-Belgian athlete and survivor: I was at the Brussels international airport to fly out to the U.S., like a lot of other people that day. The moment I was hit by the first bomb, literally all hell broke loose. I’m swept off my feet, I’m on my back, fatally injured and just waiting, hoping, praying somebody will come and see me.

Tara Palmeri, journalist and former POLITICO reporter: I think I just got a Twitter alert. I was still in bed, hadn’t properly woken up for work yet, and I saw the news of the terror attack. I got in an Uber and asked them to get me as close to the airport as possible. They dropped me off on the highway, and I started walking. When I got there, it was chaos. People were running. It was like a crime scene.

Karen Northshield: I was lying on the floor for the longest time. I’m losing my breath. I’m losing every ounce of strength I have in me. There’s blood gushing out of my leg. And I’m thinking: “How did this happen?” There were other survivors that were severely injured. They were waiting for help. There was a lot of noise and crying and yelling and screaming. Of course, it was chaos.

Tara Palmeri: I just remember the sound of the sirens. It reminded me of a World War II movie. In my head, I remember feeling like I was in the middle of a war.

Karen Northshield: When a life-or-death situation happens, the body can do amazing things. I was able to hoist myself up onto an airport cart. At a certain moment, I looked off to the side and saw somebody running back in. He was a couple meters away from me, looking to see if there were any more bodies to save. I’m thinking: “This is my only chance. It’s now or never.” I do everything I can to gain just enough strength to show him I’m alive, so I wave my hand, and he understands. He comes running to me, pushes me out and wheels me on one of the carts out to the sidewalk, then he disappears.

A plume of smoke rises over Brussels airport after the terrorist attack on March 22, 2016 in Brussels, Belgium. | Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images

Tara Palmeri: I remember there was this wonderful woman who taught yoga at the gym. She was an American girl [Karen], and she lost, like, half her body.

Karen Northshield: It took about an hour before the ambulance finally arrived [at the airport]. I was doing everything I could to stay awake and remain conscious and remain alive. But that hour just felt like hell. I was literally dying, and all I could do was just wait and pray that God would come rescue me.

When the ambulance finally arrived, I think my subconscious mind said: “Okay, you’re good. Now you can let them take care of the rest.”

At the Maelbeek metro station

At 9 a.m., another suicide bomber detonated inside a subway car at Maelbeek Station.

Christelle Giovanetti, survivor: On March 22, 2016, I left for work. I didn’t usually take the metro, but once every two months I had a meeting in the city center, which fell on that day.

The metro started moving, and as soon as the first car entered the tunnel, the explosion happened. I was sitting in that first car — it was in the second one that the suicide bomber blew himself up. There was a big ball of fire and the sound of a really loud explosion. I was thrown up and then crashed back into my seat.

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli, journalist and former POLITICO reporter: I was based in London and had started at POLITICO just a few months prior, so I was on a trip to Brussels. Because I had woken up late, I decided I was going to take the metro from Maelbeek.

I was on the phone with my dad because he’d heard on the radio about the bombs that went off at the airport, and he called to check I was OK. While I was talking to him, I heard these loud bangs, and it was the bomb going off at the metro station right below where I was standing, right where I was about to go.

Christelle Giovanetti: I remember being in the dark because I was already partially in the subway tunnel. I remember touching my legs and wondering what was on me — it was debris and dust. It felt like I had swallowed dust and had things in my mouth. There was a man next to me who kept praying.

Then, there was some movement, there was some noise, and people started switching on their phones, so everything came back to life a bit. The driver came from his cabin and helped us take out a window for an emergency exit. We let people out, women and children first. I was one of the last ones out.

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: Obviously, when it happened, it was surreal because I’d never been anywhere where bombs were going off. It’s just one of those very strange situations where you realize you’re in the middle of something that will become big news, but in the moment, you don’t really realize it’s happening. I remember just telling my dad I was going to get off the phone.

Christelle Giovanetti: I think I was a bit in shock, so instead of leaving like everyone else, I stood stuck on the platform. There were things on the ground, human pieces. I was very taken aback. There was a young woman who was with me who told me not to look. I looked anyway.

Policemen stand guard at the entrance of a security perimeter set near the Maelbeek metro station, on March 22, 2016. | Emmanuel Dunand/AFP via Getty Images

I wanted to go into the second train car, but it wasn’t possible. All the people who had died were there. I saw a lot of horrors. I pulled one woman out of the rubble who was stuck and was barely responding.

Tine Gregoor, physician and volunteer first responder: My partner and I were by chance in the car in the European Quarter, and I saw on Twitter there had been a second attack in the area. I thought there probably wasn’t a doctor there yet, so I walked to the site. I said: “Je suis medicin” (“I am a doctor”). At some point, I met someone, I think from the fire department, who took me to a first-aid station. The most critically injured were brought there.

Christelle Giovanetti: The first police arrived on the opposite platform. There was no light in the station, so we couldn’t see each other well. The officer yelled at me to evacuate, and I shouted back that there were survivors. He replied that I should get out. So, I stepped over a lot of things, and I went up the escalator. I couldn’t even see a meter in front of me because of the smoke. At the top, there were already firemen and ambulances.

Lack of equipment was a problem for everyone. I had respiratory problems because I inhaled a lot of gas from the bomb, but I couldn’t get a mask because they didn’t have enough of them, and they were obviously given to someone who was no longer breathing.

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: Basically, the Thon Hotel (on Rue de la Loi) turned into triage, and from the hotel gym — I think it was on the first floor — you could see law enforcement arriving, and people being taken out of the metro station on stretchers, both the injured and the deceased.

Tine Gregoor: People just kept coming. Tables were moved to the side, and at one point there were 11 seriously injured people just in that room, which was actually quite small. They were all lying side by side, each one in worse condition than the other. It was very intense. They all had life-threatening injuries. Anyone that could still walk was sent to another room.

Christelle Giovanetti: We were triaged based on our injuries and then sent to a hospital. In the beginning, I was surrounded by passersby, people who had taken care of me and other victims. We became very close because we’d all come out of something terrible. One of the people who was on the metro with me and with whom I had spent all morning at the Thon came looking for me. It was good to see him, even though we hadn’t known each other just the day before. He took care of me, went to get me water and charged my phone.

Tine Gregoor: I was taking care of injuries that were like war injuries. At one point I had a scalp in my hands. The victims couldn’t hear anything, and they were covered in black stuff. I had to improvise a lot because we had very little material.

We also had to triage and decide who we thought had the highest chance of survival. There were many people with broken bones, almost all of them had severe burns and some had brain injuries too. You could see their heads were swollen. After an hour, the most seriously injured were taken to the hospital. In the chaos, I’d lost my handbag and keys. I was a bit dazed. I remember a nurse asking me if I was OK, and I said yes. You just had to flip a switch and keep going.

First response

Authorities raced to secure EU institutions, clear the metro and identify victims, while families desperately awaited news. In total, 32 people were killed and more than 340 were injured.

Philippe Vansteenkiste, director of V-Europe and special adviser on Victims of Terrorism to the European Commission: On the morning of March 22, I was driving my kids to school. The day before, my wife had told me to stop listening to the news with the kids in the car because it’s not always pleasant, so I’d switched on music that day. When I arrived at the school, I heard that a bomb had exploded at the airport. My sister worked at the airport.

Then, I got a call from my mother saying my sister wasn’t answering her phone. She usually did a morning shift that ended at 6 a.m. But someone had called in sick that day, and my sister decided to stay until 8 a.m. At around 8:45 a.m., I suddenly had a very weird feeling I’d never had before. It was like my sister passed by to say goodbye. I jumped in the car and decided to drive straight to my parents.

Christian Decobecq, former head of Disaster Victim Identification (DVI), Belgian federal police: I received a call from one of my colleagues who told me there had been an explosion at Zaventem. We’d been fearing attacks — especially after France — and the federal police were on alert.

Special police forces stand guard outside the Council Chamber of Brussels on March 24, 2016 during investigations into the Paris and Brussels terror attacks. | Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

The DVI was only a team of seven, but we had a pool of 80 in case of major disasters. I started putting together teams on my whiteboard — teams for recovering bodies, autopsies, speaking to families for identification, and logistics and coordination, etc. We heard about the second explosion in Maelbeek while I was writing the names. So, I drew a line on my whiteboard and assigned a second team.

Alexander De Croo, former prime minister of Belgium: At that point, I was deputy prime minister, and my competencies were digital and telecom. The first thing was that the telecom network was crashing. I remember that, without consulting anyone, I sent a tweet asking people to please use IP-based messaging such as WhatsApp instead of calling and sending texts. It’s been my most retweeted post of my whole life. It helped a lot in reducing the tension on the telecom network.

Jean-Luca Cocci, head of Dispatching Unit, European Parliament: Once we had more or less understood what had happened, first at the airport and then in the Maelbeek metro, we knew this was something we’d never experienced before. This wasn’t attacks in France or Germany — it was next door. It was the EU’s backyard.

The first thing that collapsed was the mobile network because of congestion, so I launched one of the first WhatsApp groups. We needed to immediately inform everybody we could with the means that we had.

Tom Michiels, former technical director, Brussels Metro Business Unit: Initially, getting information was almost impossible because communication [was cut off]. But I realized quite quickly that we would need to go on-site. It became apparent we would need a team on standby to clean up the train. We went to Maelbeek, but we were not allowed down. We were there for hours on standby.

Christian Decobecq: The first thing the DVI does is go on-site and recover the bodies. Once the bodies have been collected, we transport them, and postmortem activities are carried out in collaboration with forensic experts.

When I realized it was terrorism, one of the first things that went through my head was: “Do not make mistakes.” The French had told me they made a mistake with two young girls. They didn’t follow the Interpol standards and made a comparison based on visible identification and an ID card. The two girls looked alike, and they gave the news to the wrong family. I thought to myself: “Christian, you must not do that. We will follow the procedures, and that may take some time.”

Jean-Luca Cocci: The EU institutions took the decision to keep people at home and let them stay there until we had certainty from the Belgian authorities that no other explosions or attacks were ongoing. We had many requests coming one after the other: What about my kids in school? Should we join them? Should I leave Parliament and go home? It was hard to give instructions because information was coming in from everywhere. So, block by block, step by step, we tried to answer all the questions.

Alexander De Croo: Brussels had very strict rules about how much power cell towers could have because of concerns that they might impact our health. We decided to tell telecom networks to double their power to get network stability. By late afternoon, I think we had our first Security Council meeting with government and the heads of security agencies. I think the first major discussions were about if we could have the military in the streets to secure some high-risk areas. It was a tense discussion. It’s still a difficult discussion these days.

Dimitri Defre, emergency preparedness coordinator, University Hospital Leuven: That first day was the most dramatic in terms of the medical aspect. But alongside that, we also had the forensic part of things. We were quickly designated the hospital in charge of analyzing all the physical remains of the victims and perpetrators from the airport.

There were a lot of moving parts. We had to improvise because our morgue was not big enough for the extra bodies alongside the usual flow.

A ambulance man pushes a stretcher with a body bag outside the Maalbeek metro station. | Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images

Philippe Vansteenkiste: We couldn’t find [my sister]. It was a very, very intense and difficult day. No one understood exactly what was going on, and as time goes by, you just get more and more desperate. Then, as evening approaches, suddenly all the helplines are closed because their office hours are over. You start to feel so much frustration because you need help, and it’s just not coming.

Tom Michiels: Around 11 p.m., we were allowed down [to the metro]. The police had done their investigation, so we worked for a few hours. We saw quite a scene — the train was folded open like a sardine box. The roof had been blown open and a piece was stuck to the ceiling. We were thinking: “What can we do to get this train back to a depot?” We realized relatively quickly that we needed more equipment, so around 3 or 4 a.m., we made the necessary contact.

Our team went to sleep for 3 hours before getting back to work. There were 12 to 15 of us working on the train. There was a bit of urgency to clean up for political reasons. To get the metro running as fast as possible, to show: “Look, we won’t let ourselves get destroyed.” Over four days, we only slept six hours.

Christian Decobecq: There are standards we follow: The bodies must be identified via scientific methods — that is to say, teeth, DNA or fingerprints. Only based on this can we make a positive identification. It takes time, of course. We started this the first day.

The DVI also meets with relatives for an interview to establish what the persons looked like. What were they wearing? Do they wear jewelry? Do they have any tattoos or scars? What’s the address of their doctor and dentist? We also asked if they had traveled abroad. If they’d been to America, then maybe we could find their fingerprints.

Philippe Vansteenkiste: We kept searching for [my sister], on and on. On Thursday afternoon, we finally got a call that we should come to the DVI. I went with my mother, and they asked for a description of my sister. It took an hour-and-a-half. Finally, a step was being taken.

Then, on Friday morning, a policeman called me, thinking I had already received the news that my sister had been killed — I hadn’t. So, it had happened on Tuesday, and I got the news that she had passed away on Friday, a bit by mistake. It took four days. I understand the DVI cannot make errors, but she had a uniform. She had a badge. It can’t be that families have to wait for such a long time.

Christian Decobecq: I know that for the bereaved, one minute feels like a century, but we have to be absolutely sure. We can’t make mistakes.

At one point, all the families were gathered at a Red Cross center, and I explained as much as I could. There was one family, where the wife came to me and said: “Sir, sir, please give my husband back.” I’ve never forgotten that.

The aftermath

In the ensuing days, political leaders rushed to show resolve and solidarity. But as Belgium struggled to comprehend how the attacks were able to take place, many began demanding answers.

Philippe Close, mayor of Brussels: In 2016, I was deputy mayor and a member of the Brussels Parliament. We were aware the risk existed. But in democracies, we think it’s impossible because we live in peace, that it’s unimaginable that people would attack their own country. We know that intelligence services do their utmost to control and arrest terrorist cells, but this last group decided to act, I think because they knew they were recognized by the services.

Was the city prepared? For an attack, no. To help the injured people, yes. There was a lot of solidarity. We are one of the most multicultural cities in the world, and it’s important that a large part of the population want to defend that, also after the attack.

A Belgian serviceman stands guard at the Maalbeek metro station on its re-opening day on April 25, 2016 in Brussels, after being closed since the 22 March attacks. | John Thys/AFP via Getty Images

Alexander De Croo: I found the prime minister [Charles Michel] handled it well. In general, the government did well. But when terrorist attacks happen, one way or another, it is a failure to prevent that. It was a case of really working together with security services and also making some legal reforms to give police and legal institutions more leverage to act against these terrorists.

Tara Palmeri: I remember there was a lot of debate about the right to move freely within the EU and how countries like Belgium just aren’t able to protect their citizens the way they can in the U.S. There was a huge sense that they should have done more to protect their citizens. One of the top priorities of a state is to provide security to its people. They weren’t able to do that.

Philippe Close: I remember we decided not to freeze the city. It’s a very difficult decision. The advice is to close everything. We didn’t decide that. If we decided to do that, when would we reopen? The population is made more afraid by the measures than the risks. As a politician, you need to pay attention to the balance between the risk and also the values you want to defend, and that our city needs to continue to live. If you don’t defend that, they win.

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: On the evening of the attacks, the day after and the days following, there was an incredible silence at the airport, the train station and around the city in general. It was suddenly extremely empty and quiet.

Because it wasn’t very long after the Paris attacks, it was a moment in time in Europe where everyone kind of had a sense of being in potential danger and wanting to avoid situations that could put them in harm’s way. So, everyone was a bit wary of just carrying on with their regular lives.

Christelle Giovanetti: The week that followed was really complicated because I felt like there was an attack going on inside my head. I had hearing problems, felt withdrawn in my suffering, and even though the people around me were really present, I couldn’t find what would help me.

A woman reacts during a minute of silence held at a makeshift memorial in front of Brussel’s Stock Exchange on Place de la Bourse (Beursplein) on March 24, 2016. | Philippe Huguen/AFP via Getty Images

A week after, the police organized a discussion group among victims. It was the first time I met other victims since the attack, and that really helped me. It was the starting point for my recovery. Sitting down with other people who have been through the same thing really helped. In the end, I got four days of sick leave and then went back to work.

Karen Northshield: I ended up in the hospital for 79 days — 79 days nonstop in terms of terror, in terms of agony, in terms of suffering. My body, my skin, my cells, my bones, everything was fully in flames. I had zero chance of survival, my heart had stopped so many times, I went into septic shock so many times. Everything I had built up until then, all my hopes, all my dreams just vanished into thin air.

Françoise Schepmans, member of the Brussels Parliament and former mayor of Molenbeek: I understand the anger that people felt at that time because it was a period of fear and uncertainty for residents. They were deeply worried.

Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli: There was a general sense of wariness of the people around you, which I think was the worst part, really. I have always thought of Brussels as an inclusive city where different people mingle, and there’s just a melting pot of people from different walks of life. Suddenly those people or those communities were singled out.

Alexander De Croo: This was the first major terrorist attack in 40 years. It opened many people’s eyes to the fact that no one is shielded from this. I think it’s a major trauma in Belgian society. I think that we’ve always been a very stable and peaceful society. People from the security forces [used to] say that we don’t really have a culture of security — and that’s true. But that’s also the type of society we had. Politicians in general were very accessible and had no security forces, parliament and ministries essentially had open doors. That had to change quite a bit. It really changed the way we look at how we have to secure our society.

Philippe Close: Our police departments need to study these terrorist actions more. For example, what happens in the Middle East is always a risk for Brussels — and we know it. We need to invest in intelligence. We also need to detect radicalism. A large part of people become [radicalized] on social networks. I think there’s a real responsibility from Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and all of them, to manage what we can put on social networks more.

Françoise Schepmans: A lot has changed in the last 10 years. People were afraid back then. Today, we are better prepared, better coordinated and better equipped to prevent and respond to threats. We have stronger tools, clearer procedures and more experience in protecting our society. Unfortunately, in today’s world, we have to be aware that anything can happen. That’s why we must stay vigilant and prepared. But at the same time, we cannot live in fear. We have to stay hopeful, united and trust that our institutions and our society are stronger than they were before.