{"id":46983,"date":"2026-03-24T05:40:34","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/46983\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T05:40:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T05:40:34","slug":"on-10th-anniversary-of-brussels-terror-attacks-authorities-vow-to-have-learnt-the-right-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/46983\/","title":{"rendered":"On 10th anniversary of Brussels terror attacks, authorities vow to have learnt the ‘right lessons’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgium<\/a> on Sunday marked 10 years since the 2016 jihadist bombings<\/a> in Brussels<\/a>, a trauma that still scars the country and that authorities say sharpened focus on intelligence and counter-terrorism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The March 22, 2016 attacks<\/a> claimed by the Islamic State (IS<\/a>) group left 32 people dead and more than 300 wounded \u2013 Belgium’s worst peacetime massacre<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Our country will never forget,” King Phillipe told a crowd of hundreds gathered around a monument to the victims. “We did not give in to fear, we did not give in to division.”<\/p>\n

He, along with Queen Mathilde and Prime Minister Bart de Wever watched as survivors recounted the harrowing scenes witnessed that morning.<\/p>\n

Read moreBelgian court finds Paris attacker Salah Abdeslam guilty of murder in 2016 Brussels bombings<\/a><\/p>\n

The country’s remembrance ceremonies began earlier Sunday at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, at 8am (0700 GMT), the same time the suicide bombers struck.<\/p>\n

Proceedings continued an hour later at the Maelbeek metro station, also targeted in the coordinated suicide blasts that ripped through the Belgian capital, before culminating at the victims’ monument.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

The Brussels attacks<\/a> were the work of the same jihadist cell that struck Paris months earlier, on November 13, 2015<\/a>, killing 130 people.<\/p>\n

Having retreated to Brussels safe houses, the jihadists mounted a hastily organised attack in the days after the March 18 arrest of Salah Abdeslam<\/a>, the only surviving member of the Paris attack group.<\/p>\n

On March 22, a Tuesday morning, three suicide bombers detonated their explosives, first at Zaventem and then at the packed metro station close to the seat of EU institutions.<\/p>\n

‘Feeling of failure’<\/p>\n

The commemorations took place as the ongoing war in the Middle East has heightened the authorities’ concerns about possible new attacks.<\/p>\n

This month, a pre-dawn blast damaged a synagogue in the eastern city of Li\u00e8ge, causing no injuries. Over the border, the Netherlands was later hit by two similar incidents targeting the Jewish community.<\/p>\n

In Belgium, the threat level remains “serious”, at three on a four-point scale, following an October 2023 attack in Brussels that saw a gunman shoot dead two Swedish football fans before being killed by police.<\/p>\n

Belgium was criticised for security failings in the run-up to the 2016 bombings, something the head of the country’s CUTA<\/a> national threat analysis centre, Gert Vercauteren, said he remembers well.<\/p>\n

“It’s a feeling of failure that obviously hit us all,” he said in an interview with AFP.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of the bombings, the Belgian government was left reeling.<\/p>\n

Two ministers offered their resignations after Turkey said Belgium had ignored warnings from Ankara, which had deported airport bomber Ibrahim El Bakraoui<\/a> in 2015 following his arrest near the Syrian border.<\/p>\n

‘Struggle for recognition’<\/p>\n

“Those responsible for our security have a duty to take the lessons of the past to heart. I take that duty very seriously,” Prime Minister De Wever posted<\/a> on X before attending the ceremonies.<\/p>\n

Today, Belgium’s justice system, police and intelligence services assert they have significantly improved information sharing.<\/p>\n

The number of state security service staff has increased from 600 to 950 agents in a decade. “We have learnt the right lessons,” asserted Vercauteren.<\/p>\n

The creation of a shared database on extremist profiles was “a major step forward”, he said.<\/p>\n

This database, which all security services, including municipal police forces working with community outreach staff, can access and contribute to, is constantly updated.<\/p>\n

Last year, it contained 555 names “under priority monitoring”, 86 percent of whom were flagged for “Islamist extremism”, according to CUTA.<\/p>\n

But some victims complain that even 10 years after the attacks, they are still unable to have their physical or psychological injuries recognised, limiting their right to compensation.<\/p>\n

“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, Alexander and Sascha, at the airport.<\/p>\n

(FRANCE 24 with AFP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgium on Sunday marked 10 years since the 2016 jihadist bombings in Brussels, a trauma that still scars…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[104],"tags":[5833,26543,211,210,535,25928,25927,19446,26542,26541],"class_list":["post-46983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brussels","tag-bart-de-wever","tag-beatrice-de-lavalette","tag-belgium","tag-brussels","tag-brussels-airport","tag-brussels-attacks","tag-gert-vercauteren","tag-islamic-state","tag-king-phillipe","tag-queen-mathilde"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116282551333073114","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}