Ten Years After the Brussels Attacks, a City – and Its Queer Community – Still Carry the Shock

Ten years after the 22 March 2016 bombings at Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station, Brussels is still living with the physical and emotional scars of the deadliest attacks in Belgium’s history – and its LGBTQ+ communities are part of that shared story of loss and resilience.

On 22 March 2016, coordinated suicide bombings struck the departures hall of Brussels Airport in Zaventem and a metro train leaving Maelbeek station, killing 36 people and injuring around 340 more. For many in Brussels, that morning has never really ended. It hangs in the air of the city: in the silence that falls when a siren sounds nearby, in the way people glance around a crowded airport queue or a packed metro carriage, in the instinctive check of exits on public transport. Even for those who were not physically there, something broke that day – a sense of safety, the belief that “this only happens elsewhere”, already shaken by the Paris attacks four months earlier.

A decade later, the pain has not disappeared; it has changed shape. It lives in bodies that will never fully recover, in prosthetics and chronic pain, in hearing loss and scars. It lives in nightmares, in flashbacks triggered by loud bangs or crowded platforms, in the anxiety of boarding a plane or stepping into Maelbeek. It also lives in the eyes of first responders and professionals who ran towards the chaos: firefighters, police officers, paramedics, nurses, doctors, psychologists and many others whose work that day went far beyond any job description. The city owes them an immeasurable debt that cannot be captured in a simple “thank you”.

The trauma is also held in less visible places: in the slow pace of court proceedings, in battles with insurers, in administrative delays, in the feeling some survivors have of being forgotten once the headlines moved on. For some, like Shanti De Corte – a young woman who survived Zaventem and later chose euthanasia due to unbearable psychological suffering – the 22 March attacks continued to claim lives years after the bombs went off. The tenth anniversary is therefore not only a date on a calendar but a reminder that “after” is long, uneven and, for many, still ongoing.

For Brussels’ LGBTQ+ communities, 22 March never was a separate chapter. Queer people were there in every role: in the departure hall at Zaventem, on the metro, in hospital emergency rooms, in intervention units, in crisis centres, in newsrooms, in call centres, in the offices where decisions had to be made minute by minute. Some LGBTQ+ people died that day, others were injured, and many more cared for the wounded, translated for families, supported colleagues, held hands in waiting rooms and morgues. In those hours, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, skin colour or migration status stopped mattering. People ran, carried stretchers, called loved ones, and simply did their jobs as one link in a much larger chain.

That is perhaps the clearest picture of the very real, non-theoretical “Brussels we” that emerged in the smoke and confusion: bodies and lives that usually move past each other without a word suddenly leaning on one another. Business travellers, undocumented workers, airport staff, EU officials, cleaners, tourists, students, police, queer club kids coming home late, parents on school runs – all thrown into the same emergency and responding, in countless ways, together. For a city often described as fragmented, the attacks revealed how deeply interwoven its people actually are.

The violence hurt so much precisely because it struck that shared, ordinary space: an airport, a metro line, the everyday choreography of a “city of cities” where we cross paths constantly without needing to ask who someone loves, where they come from or what they believe. The young men who carried out the attacks, by contrast, were not monsters from nowhere, but lost youths pulled into conveyor-belt hate: radical propaganda, imported ideologies, networks that turned broken paths and social fractures into weapons. Nothing excuses their crimes, and accountability matters. But it is also important to recognise how neglected lives, frustration and exclusion were captured and amplified by actors and agendas far bigger than them, sacrificing their futures along with the lives of their victims.

Since 2016, Brussels has moved forward in the way it often does: through small, stubborn acts rather than grand speeches. Memorials have been created at the airport, at Maelbeek and in other symbolic sites, and annual ceremonies bring together families, survivors, first responders and authorities to read names and keep memory alive. In metros, airports, schools and associations, there is more open conversation about radicalisation, online extremism, prevention and mental health. Activist circles – from decolonial and anti‑racist groups to feminist, queer, Muslim, Christian and secular collectives – have tried to imagine responses that do not rely on fear, mass surveillance or collective suspicion.

Resilience here is not a postcard slogan. It is visible in people who continue to take the metro every day, to work at Zaventem, to organise parties, Pride events and queer nights, to live and love in a city they know will never be entirely “safe” but which they refuse to abandon to fear. It is in the decision to keep Brussels what it is: messy, mixed, sometimes exhausting, but also solidary – a place where you can hear five languages in one tram ride and still feel at home.

For a medium like ket.brussels, remembering 22 March 2016 means stating clearly that there is no “community outside” this story. Queer people were in the tunnels, in the ambulances, in the crisis rooms, in the operating theatres, in editorial meetings, on duty in police uniforms, behind call‑centre headsets and at airport check‑in desks. We were passengers, neighbours, partners, parents, colleagues, volunteers. We were afraid, we cried, we lost friends, family members and lovers. And we are still, today, living with scars – some on our bodies, many deep inside.

Ten years on, paying tribute means accepting the complexity: the pain of victims, the anger of relatives, the exhaustion of responders, the fear that still grips some commuters on certain mornings. It also means honouring the tenderness of those who held a stranger’s hand in a cloud of dust and sirens, or who opened their home to people stuck in the city. It means rejecting quick, simplistic scapegoats while still demanding answers, accountability and concrete policies that address inequalities and prevent new cycles of violence. Above all, it means defending an open city where a queer couple stepping off the metro at Maelbeek, a veiled woman boarding a flight at Zaventem, or a brown student crossing the departure hall with a backpack are seen as legitimate parts of the same “us” – not as potential threats.

On 22 March 2026, many people in Brussels will stand still for a moment: in a train, on a platform, in an open‑plan office, at the airport, or at one of the memorial ceremonies. For some it will be a formal commemoration, for others a quiet pang of the heart, a face or a sound that returns unexpectedly. For us at ket, it is also a moment to say to everyone who still carries that day in their body or in their mind: you are not alone. Your grief matters, your story matters, and the way you keep going – however slowly, however shakily – is part of what keeps Brussels standing.

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Pour aller plus loin

FR
Pour marquer les dix ans des attentats, la RTBF propose sur Auvio le documentaire « Mémoires à vif », qui donne la parole aux victimes et à leurs proches. Une soirée spéciale « Attentats de Bruxelles : l’urgence d’informer » revient aussi sur le travail des journalistes le 22 mars 2016. Plus d’infos et liens vers Auvio sur les pages de la RTBF : Mémoires à vif – RTBF et L’urgence d’informer – RTBF

La VRT propose, sur VRT 1 et VRT MAX, un documentaire de VRT NWS qui retrace les attentats « dix ans plus tard à travers les yeux des victimes », ainsi qu’une couverture en direct des commémorations du 22 mars. Infos et accès via : VRT NWS – Documentaire et commémorations 22/3​

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Voor wie verder wil kijken

NL
Naar aanleiding van tien jaar na de aanslagen brengt de RTBF op Auvio de documentaire “Mémoires à vif”, waarin slachtoffers en nabestaanden hun verhaal doen, én een speciale avond “Attentats de Bruxelles : l’urgence d’informer” over hoe journalisten die dag moesten berichten. Meer info en links naar Auvio vind je via: Mémoires à vif – RTBF en L’urgence d’informer – RTBF

De VRT zendt op VRT 1 en VRT MAX een unieke VRT NWS-documentaire uit over de aanslagen van 22 maart – “tien jaar later door de ogen van slachtoffers” – én een liveverslag van de herdenkingen. Alle info en toegang via: VRT NWS – Documentaire en herdenking 22/3​

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For further viewing

EN
To mark the tenth anniversary of the attacks, RTBF is offering on Auvio the documentary “Mémoires à vif”, giving voice to survivors and families, as well as a special programme “Attentats de Bruxelles : l’urgence d’informer” about how journalists covered 22 March 2016 in real time. More information and links to Auvio are available via: Mémoires à vif – RTBF and L’urgence d’informer – RTBF

Public broadcaster VRT is broadcasting on VRT 1 and VRT MAX a VRT NWS documentary that looks back at the 22 March attacks “ten years later through the eyes of the victims”, alongside live coverage of this year’s commemorations. Details and access here: VRT NWS – Documentary and 22/3 commemorations​

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