Brussels attack victims came from Belgium, worldwide

Victims of the attacks on Brussels’ airport and subway included commuters heading to work and travelers setting off on long-anticipated vacations. They came from dozens of nations to a city that’s home to the European Union, NATO and other international institutions.

Among the confirmed dead:

Days before the Brussels attacks, Raghavendran Ganesan returned to his work in Brussels from his homeland of India, where his wife had given birth to their son.

On the morning of March 22, the 31-year-old software engineer spoke by Skype to his mother in Mumbai just an hour before the attacks, mostly about about his job at IT giant Infosys.

Then he set off for work by subway, his usual routine for the past four years.

As television stations worldwide flashed news of the attacks, Ganesan’s family tried desperately to trace him. His brother posted an appeal on his Facebook page.

Six days later, Belgian officials confirmed that Ganesan’s body had been found inside the devastated subway train at Maelbeek station.

“Unfortunately, he was traveling in the same coach of the metro in which the suicide bomber blew himself up,” India’s external affairs minister, Sushma Swaraj, said in a tweet.

Infosys confirmed the news. “Our thoughts and prayers are with Raghavendran’s family and with those who were injured and lost a loved one in these attacks,” the company said in a statement.

Ganesan’s parents and his brother accompanied his remains Tuesday from Brussels to the southern Indian city of Chennai, where his wife and month-old son live. The family has yet to decide on the time of the cremation, Press Trust of India said.

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Gilles Laurent was a master of sound.

A sound recordist and engineer, he had worked on movies all over the world, including Mexican director Carlos Reygadas’ Cannes Film Festival entry “Post Tenebras Lux” and Argentinian drama “The Tango Singer.”

Laurent, who lived in the southern Belgian city of Namur, was on the subway train targeted by a bomb inside Maelbeek station.

Israeli cartoonist Michel Kichka, who worked with Laurent on the documentary “Cartoonists: Foot Soldiers of Democracy,” paid tribute on his blog to Laurent’s kindness and “Olympian calm.”

The 46-year-old came from Bouillon in southern Belgium, where his parents own the Porte de France hotel. Friends were invited to pay their last respects to him at the hotel Tuesday.

He leaves behind his wife, Reiko Udo, daughters Suzu and Lili and a large extended family. “You have been snatched from us by a tragic destiny, but you will always remain at our sides,” they wrote in a death notice.

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The loss of 29-year-old Melanie Defize, who died in the subway attack, sent shockwaves throughout the classical music world. She was an accomplished music producer and violinist.

She was an integral part of the independent label Cypres Records, which publishes music ranging from medieval to contemporary. She wrote for Forumopera.com, sharing her enthusiasm and deep knowledge of the music scene.

Cedric Hustinx, who worked with her at Cypres, said her death leaves an unfillable void. He said she brought luminous enthusiasm and a sensitive nature to her work.

Her colleagues at Forumopera.com posted a Facebook tribute to Defize that described her as funny and irreverent. It said she loved Jeff Buckley and Radiohead as well as classical works. Her co-workers said the grief of losing her in such a vile way seems insurmountable.

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Belgian student Bart Migom was traveling from Brussels to Atlanta to visit his girlfriend when he was caught in the attack on Brussels Airport.

Staff and students at Howest University in Bruges, Belgium, held a service for him over Easter weekend after his death was confirmed.

Migom, 21, had called his girlfriend, Emily Eisenman, while traveling to the airport and planned to send a follow-up message as he boarded the plane. Eisenman told NBC News he had promised to keep in touch every step of the way on his journey to Atlanta. She said his last words to her were “I love you.”

She described being awakened in the middle of the night by a call from Migom’s family telling her about the bombings.

A Facebook post by Lode De Geyter, the managing director at Howest, said Migom was a second-year marketing student.

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Gigi Adam said her 79-year-old father, Andre Adam, died trying to protect his wife during the attack on Brussels airport.

Adam was a retired Belgian diplomat who had served as his country’s ambassador to Cuba, the United States and the United Nations.

“His death has wounded us all forever,” Gigi Adam wrote on Facebook. “All his life he had worked towards the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world.”

She described her father as “a cultured and cheerful man” who had met his future wife – “the love of his life” – on his posting to Cuba in the early 1960s. She said her mother had been hospitalized after the attack.

Gigi Adam said her parents had retired to southwest France in recent years.

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A missing American couple have been identified as victims of the attack at the Brussels airport, according to their employers.

Justin Shults, 30, and wife Stephanie Shults had not been seen since Tuesday.

Her employer, Mars Inc., said in a Facebook post Saturday evening that her family had confirmed that the couple died in the bombings at the Brussels airport. Justin Shults’ employer, Clarcor, had confirmed his death earlier.

Justin Shults, originally from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and his wife, a Lexington, Kentucky, native, graduated together from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management. They were dropping Stephanie’s mother off at the airport and were watching her walk through security when the bombs went off, a family member said.

Justin Shults’ brother, Levi Sutton, wrote on social media Saturday that his brother “traveled the world, leaving each destination better than when he arrived.”

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Patricia Rizzo’s family hails from a tiny town in Sicily, but she was as broadly European as they come.

Born in Belgium to a family originally from Calascibetta, near Enna, Sicily, Rizzo graduated from a Belgian university and worked for several Belgian companies as an executive secretary before joining European institutions in 1995.

The Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Rizzo, 48, was among the dead from the attack on Maelbeek station.

“Unfortunately, Patricia is no longer with us,” a man who identified himself as Rizzo’s cousin, Massimo Leonora, wrote on Facebook. His final post capped days of anxious updates recounting his search of Brussels hospitals in hopes that Rizzo might have been among the injured.

“It’s difficult, but at least now we’re beyond this unending race against time to find you.”

Rizzo moved back to Italy from 2003 to 2008 to work as the assistant to the executive director of the European Food Safety Authority.

In 2008, she was named human resources assistant for the EU’s education and culture agency in Brussels and for the past five months had worked in the human resources department of the European Research Council.

“After a few days of excruciating waiting and angst, our worst fears have been confirmed,” the ERC’s executive leadership said Saturday, praising Rizzo’s energy, attitude and spirit.

The council said Rizzo is survived by a son and her parents.

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Jennifer Scintu Waetzmann was a coach for a youth handball club in Aachen, Germany.

Her uncle, Claudio Scinto, told the German newspaper Bild that she and her husband were checking in Tuesday morning at Brussels Airport bound for a belated honeymoon in New York when the first bomb exploded.

The blast killed her and left her husband, Lars Waetzmann, among the 270 wounded in Brussels.

Her final public post on Facebook came right after the November extremist assaults on Paris. It said: “Pray for Paris.” Other pictures show her and her husband in romantic seaside settings with the inscription: “Love of my life.”

German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said Friday his thoughts were with Waetzmann’s family and vowed Germany “will not rest until the murderers and those who aided them are held responsible.”

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Elita Borbor Weah, who was heading to Rhode Island for her stepfather’s funeral, had texted family members a photo of herself Tuesday at Brussels Airport.

A short time later, two suicide bombers struck the airport, killing her.

The 40-year-old had been living in the Netherlands with her 13-year-old daughter after her extended family from Liberia had dispersed across West Africa, Europe and the United States following Liberia’s civil wars.

Her brother Oscar Weah, of Providence, Rhode Island, was shaking and in tears Friday as he described how his older sister helped care for him over the years. Other relatives sang her praises.

“She had a good heart,” said 14-year-old niece Eden Weah. “She was always worried about everybody.”

Now, in addition to holding a funeral for her 87-year-old stepfather, the family was making arrangements to care for her teenage daughter.

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David Dixon had texted family members to say he was safe after two bombs severely damaged Brussels airport, but he was killed shortly afterward when a bomber attacked the subway system.

Dixon, a 53-year-old British citizen, was working as a computer programmer. Britain’s Foreign Office confirmed his death Friday.

Friends and family had been searching for him since he failed to arrive at work Tuesday morning after the bombings. Press reports indicated he lived in Brussels with his partner and their son.

“This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David,” said a statement sent out by officials on behalf of Dixon’s family.

Prime Minister David Cameron said he was deeply saddened by the death of Dixon, who was originally from Hartlepool in northeastern England.

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Two New York City siblings are among the dead, their family said Friday.

Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch nationals who lived in the U.S., were headed home to the United States when a bomb exploded at the Brussels airport Tuesday morning. Alexander, 29, was on the phone with his mother in the Netherlands when the line went dead, said James Cain, whose daughter Cameron was engaged to Alexander.

Alexander had traveled to the Netherlands to work on a craft-related business that he and Cameron were going to start together, Cain said. The couple met six years ago while taking summer courses in Durham, North Carolina, and planned to marry within the year.

Sascha Pinczowski, 26, was a 2015 graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York with a degree in business. She spent last summer as an intern at a catering company, Shiraz Events.

Shiraz Events President Shai Tertner called her “a bright, hardworking young woman with a great career ahead of her.”

In November, Sascha Pinczowski had warned that demonizing Muslims would fuel extremist recruitment. She posted on Facebook after the Nov. 13 Paris attacks: “Ignorant spreading of anti-Muslim sentiment and propaganda does nothing but benefit ISIS.”

Pinczowski’s Nov. 16 Facebook post was reposted by her mother, Marjan Pinczowski Fasbender, who wrote that she wanted to share “this message of tolerance from our Dear Daughter Sascha.”

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The Chinese Embassy in Belgium said Friday that a Chinese national was killed in the attacks. He was identified only by his surname, Deng. No details were released.

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Born in Peru, Adelma Tapia Ruiz dreamed of opening a restaurant. She had lived in Belgium for nine years but still cooked the recipes of her homeland. Last year she prepared the spicy chicken dish aji de gallina for a food festival organized by the Peruvian consulate in Brussels.

Tapia, 37, was killed when a bomb tore through the departures area of Brussels Airport on Tuesday, her family confirmed. A split-second decision saved her husband and 4-year-old twin daughters Maureen and Alondra from sharing her fate.

Her Belgian husband, Christophe Delcambe, had taken the girls out of the check-in line to play when an explosion ripped through the concourse. One daughter was struck in the arm by shrapnel and is being treated in a Belgian hospital.

Her brother, Fernando Tapia, told The Associated Press his sister had been preparing to catch a flight to New York to visit two sisters who live in the United States.

Tapia and her husband lived in the town of Tubize, south of Brussels, and her brother said she would likely be buried in Belgium.

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Leopold Hecht was gravely wounded in the bombing at Maelbeek subway station and died later of his injuries.

The rector of Saint-Louis University in Brussels, Pierre Jadoul, said 20-year-old Hecht was “one of the unfortunate victims of these barbaric acts.”

“There are no words to describe our dismay at this news,” he said in a letter to students.

Classmates lit handles and left flowers outside the university in memory of Hecht, whose Facebook profile includes pictures of a smiling young man on the ski slopes and in the great outdoors.

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Civil servant Olivier Delespesse also died in the bombing at Maelbeek station, according to his employer, the Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles.