Days after the Brussels attacks, their loved ones are still missing
BRUSSELS -- In the chaos that followed Tuesday's attacks here, family members have been frantically searching for their loved ones.
Information about the victims has been slow to trickle in. Families are still waiting for news as Friday morning's rain washed away messages of peace written in chalk on the square where Brussels residents have gathered. Meanwhile, the hospital where many of the victims were taken is surrounded by armed military guards.
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Levi Sutton's brother Jeff Shults and his wife Stephanie Shults are still missing. More than 70 hours after the attacks, his family still has no answers.
The American couple, who are originally from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and Lexington, Kentucky, had been living in Brussels since 2014.
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They had just dropped off Stephanie's mother at the airport when the blasts rocked the terminal. No one in their family has heard from them since.
Earlier this week, the U.S. State Department told the family that the Shults had been found alive, but that information was quickly walked back, according to Sutton.
He said a Belgian social worker told the family that the information that they were found alive was not confirmed.
Mashable has reached out to the State Department for comment, but has not received a reply.
Howest University student Bart Migom had been missing since the attacks. His girlfriend, American Emily Eisennan, was appealing to the public for any information on his whereabouts, remaining hopeful that he would turn up alive.
"Bart is a very godly man. he will do anything for anybody else. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was harmed because he was trying to save someone else," Eisenman told CNN on Thursday. "I'm sure he doesn’t want me to worry, and he doesn’t want our families to worry."
But hours later on Thursday, the family's worst fears were confirmed: Migom was formally identified that night.
"This morning we received the sad news from Bart's parents that Bart Migom, second-year Marketing student at Howest, has passed away. Last night he has been identified as one of the victims of Tuesday's atrocious acts of terror," wrote Managing Director of Howest, Lode De Geyter, in a statement on the University's Facebook page. "Our thought go out to Bart's family, and we convey our deepest sympathies to his parents, brother and sister."
Students and faculty gathered to remember him on Friday.
An excruciating wait over the long weekend
A spokesperson told Mashable that 14 people are currently being treated in the burn unit of the country's Koningin Astrid Military Hospital in Neder-over-Heembeek. Five of those victims have the most serious level of injury, and the other nine are in stable condition.
Mashable attempted to contact the Erasme Hospital, where many victims were also taken after the attacks, but hospital representatives said no information would be given to the public until Tuesday, after a long holiday weekend in the country.
Meanwhile on Friday, international embassies are slowly confirming fatalities.
Chinese officials confirmed at least one citizen was killed in the attacks.
Secretary of State John Kerry confirmed that two Americans were among the dead during a brief statement made after a meeting with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, but he declined to offer numbers or identify who they were. However, the family of brother and sister Sascha and Andrew Pinczowski have confirmed their deaths.
The British Foreign Office confirmed on Friday that David Dixon, who was from Nottingham but lived in Brussels, was traveling on the metro and died during the explosion. At least seven British people were injured in the attacks.
For days after the attacks, family members and friends had appealed for information on his whereabouts.
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But on Friday, their search came to a tragic end.
"We can confirm David Dixon lost his life in the attacks which took place in Brussels," the Foreign Office wrote in a statement. "Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time and our Embassy staff are continuing to support them."
In the coming days, many more victims will be confirmed, but for now, some families still hold out hope that their loved ones may be found.
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Megan Specia was Mashable's Assistant Real-Time News Editor and joined the team in September 2014. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism & Mass Communications from the University of New Hampshire after growing up in the Jersey 'burbs. She made her way to New York via a four year stopover in Dublin. Megan previously worked as a journalist and editor at Storyful in both Dublin and New York. Before all of that, though, her claim to fame was as head cake arranger and purveyor of all things sweet at Queen of Tarts cafe in Dublin, where she developed a serious addiction to macarons.
