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Belgians gathered Wednesday to commiserate and remember coordinated suicide bombings that struck Brussels in 2016 on the same day and killed 32 people, leaving more than 300 injured.
March 22 was the date when two suicide blasts first ripped through an airport in the city in the morning, making the area a scene of carnage. Miles away in the Maelbeek subway station the third bomb exploded during the morning rush hour too.
The European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are based in Brussels.
The victims of coordinated suicide attacks were not just from Belgium, but they were from several other countries too including China, Morocco and India.
The victims also included a Swedish illustrator, a Belgian filmmaker, a Chinese entrepreneur, a couple from the United States, a Congolese business school graduate and a Belgian Muslim teacher.
A minute of silence was observed at 7:58 a.m. by a large crowd gathered at the airport on Wednesday. At the same time the first explosion convulsed last year the departure terminal.
Belgian newspaper Le Soir referred it as “day in March where we lost our innocence.”
Belgian sculptor Jean-Henri Compere unveiled a large sculpture of 66-foot-long consisting of two stainless steel slabs which are crushed and pocked with holds. It is titled “Wounded but Still Standing in the Face of the Unthinkable.”