With a growing number of candles and messages being left across Brussels for the victims of the terrorist attacks earlier this week in the Belgian capital, the nationalities of those killed began to be confirmed yesterday by countries around the world.
Germany confirmed that a 29-year-old woman previously reported as missing was among the dead.
The women’s husband was severely injured in the attack in the departure hall of the Brussels airport, and is the only German national still hospitalised.
The airport was one of two locations, along with a central subway line, that were targeted in the explosions, which claimed at least 31 lives and left 300 people injured.
Belgian authorities have said there were more than 40 nationalities among the dead and injured.
British Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed a death from his country, stating in a message that he was “saddened to hear David Dixon was killed in the Brussels attacks”.
The French foreign ministry confirmed that a French citizen was killed in the blasts.
Three Dutch citizens were killed at the airport, the Dutch foreign ministry said.
These included a 41-year-old woman from Deventer, the Netherlands, on the border with Germany, and a brother and sister from Maastricht who lived in New York were among the Dutch victims.
The siblings were identified as Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski.
“Two young siblings from our city were taken from us far too soon, and our hearts break for the family and friends of Sascha and Alexander,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement. “Today we vow to continue standing up for freedom and democracy in honour of those we have lost.”
“It is terrible that these people were killed through the arbitrariness of terror,” Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said.
Besides the two siblings, it was not immediately clear how many US citizens were dead.
Speaking yesterday during a visit to Brussels, US Secretary of State John Kerry said “the US, I want you to know, is praying and grieving with you for the loved ones of those who have been very cruelly taken from us, including Americans, and for the many who were injured in these despicable attacks”.
A university student and a government worker from Belgium and a Peruvian woman married to a Belgian were confirmed dead earlier this week, but the victims’ identities remained largely unknown as Brussels Mayor Yvan Mayeur warned that identification would “take some time”.
Orthodox Jewish site JSS News wrote that Israeli Yossef Haim ben Haya Sarah Gittel died at the Brussels airport, while the government in Rome suspected that an Italian woman died at Maelbeek metro station.
One Chinese citizen and one additional Belgian were killed, the state news agency Xinhua and Belga reported yesterday.
As part of their efforts to formally identify all 31 victims, Belgian authorities contacted Sweden for help with DNA profiling of next of kin, Swedish officials said.
“In Swedish cases, [DNA] samples from two close members of a victim’s next of kin, preferably a parent or sibling, are used to generate a reference,” said Cajsa Algenas of the Swedish National Board of Forensic Medicine, the designated agency.
The process, known as disaster victim identification, draws on DNA, dental records or fingerprints, she told DPA.
Formal announcements of the results and the identification of the victims rests with Belgium and the results of the DNA analysis are transferred via the Swedish national police, Algenas said.