Injured Spaniards in Brussels attacks rise to nine
Thursday, March 24, 2016 @ 3:04 PM
THE number of Spaniards injured in the Brussels airport and metro blasts has risen to nine, according to acting foreign affairs minister José Manuel García-Margallo, but he cannot give many details as not all their families have been advised.
“It does not appear there is any imminent risk [to their lives] or, at least, they haven't told us so,” García-Margallo admits, but says Belgian medical services are being 'very cautious' about giving out information.
He adds that the ministry is 'making an enormous effort' to trace Spaniards whose relatives and friends say are in Brussels, but whom they have not heard from.
Most of the relatives of the known injured Spanish citizens have been informed, although they are having some difficulty getting to the Belgian capital to be with them as flights from Spain have been suspended – although Irish low-cost carrier is still running connections to Charleroi airport.
Zaventem airport on the edge of Brussels, where 11 people have been killed in a double suicide bombing at the American Airlines departure gates, has closed altogether and no flights have been running since the attack – planes to and from Zaventem have been grounded today (Thursday), and it is not known whether any will fly over Easter.
And train services linking Brussels to other parts of Belgium and abroad, and the city metro system, have nearly all been cancelled following the deaths of 20 people in the terrorist blast at Maalbeek station just a few hundred metres from the European Union Parliament building.
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