Peruvian Adelma Tapia Ruiz died at airport while British man David Dixon named among those still missing after attacks in the Belgium capital

The identities of those killed, injured, or missing in the attacks on Brussels have begun to emerge with relatives and governments revealing victims from across the globe.

At least 31 people are known to have been killed, most at the Maelbeek Metro station, and 11 at the Zaventem airport. An estimated 230 were injured at both sites, including foreign nationals as well as Belgians.



Peruvian Adelma Tapia Ruiz, in her 30s, was the first publicly confirmed death from the attack. Ruiz, who lived in Brussels, was at the airport to see off relatives of her Belgian husband, Christopher Delcambe, who was reportedly injured.



Ruiz’s brother, Fernando Tapia Coral, said in an interview that the couple’s twin four-year-old daughters went outside the gate area to play shortly before the explosion and Delcambe followed them. He was unable to find Ruiz after the blast.

Coral confirmed his sister’s death on Facebook, saying: “this tragedy today touched the doors of my family this morning in the Brussels airport, when my sister Adelma Tapia died in the terrorist attack and was not able to survive this jihadist attack that we’ll never understand.”

Adelma Tapia Ruiz, 36, from Peru, who lived in Brussels and was a victim of the Brussels attacks. Photograph: Facebook

On Wednesday, the Saint Louis University, in Brussels, said one of its students was a victim of the attacks.

In a Facebook post, it said: “I am very sad to inform you of the death of Leopold Hecht.”

It described him as “one of the unfortunate victims of the barbarous acts perpetrated on Tuesday, March 22 at the Maelbeek metro station”, adding:



“There are no words to describe our dismay at the news. All our thoughts are with his family and relatives.”



It said Hecht, 20, was a law student.



Friends and families have been appealing for help in tracing a number of missing people who have not made contact since the explosions.

Downing Street has said it is “concerned” about David Dixon, a British IT worker originally from Hartlepool, County Durham, who failed to turn up for work in Brussels following the attacks.

He has not answered his phone since. His partner Charlotte Sutcliffe has been driving from hospital to hospital in Brussels trying to find him.

Her sister Marie Sutcliffe told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Not everybody has been identified yet of the injured so it’s just waiting for that process to happen.

“It’s just waiting, which is heartbreaking and very worrying.”

Four other Britons were injured, three of whom are in hospital.

An Indian national, Raghavendra Ganeshan, who worked for a technology company in Brussels hasalso been missing since the attacks. His mother Annapoorni Ganeshan told the News Minute that said she spoke to him before he left for work on Tuesday and that he took the metro line that was hit to the office every day.

She said: “He told me that he was leaving to work. About an hour later I got a call from my other son, who lives in Germany, saying that there was a blast in Brussels. I checked the news. Initially I only saw it was in the airport. But later there were news flashes that there was a blast in the metro line- Merode to Park station. This is the metro my son uses to commute to [the] office every day.”



India’s minister of external affairs, Sushma Swaraj, confirmed authorities are looking for Ganeshan. She said that two other Indian nationals who were injured, The Jet Airways crew members injured, Nidhi Chaphekar and Amit Motwani, both crew members with Jet Airways, were recovering well.

US woman Carolyn Moore was at the airport about to return home after visiting her daughter and son-in-law, Stephanie and Justin Shults, reported WKYT. Moore was knocked over by the blast but uninjured, her sister said. However she has not been able to reach Stephanie or Justin, who are reportedly not on the list of casualties.



Siblings from New York, Sascha and Alexander Pinczowski, are also believed to be missing. The pair had gone to the Brussel airport on Tuesday morning and spoken with a relative over the phone once they arrived.

The Netherlands says two of its citizens are missing and Sweden says four of its citizens are missing. Neither government has released names of the missing.

A number of appeals have also been put out on social media sites for people believed to be at the airport or on the metro at the time of the blasts.

Among the hundreds injured in the attack are at least 19 Portuguese citizens - there is a large expat community in Brussels - and eight French citizens, including three seriously wounded. A spokesman for the French foreign ministery warned however that the situation was constantly evolving, and the number could change.



Three Italians were also among the injured, although not seriously, according to the Italian embassy in Belgium. Two Colombians and an Ecuadorian national also were among the wounded, their governments said.



A Brazilian-Belgian man, Sebastian Bellin, suffered severe leg injuries while standing in line at a check-in counter.



Bellin, who played for Oakland University in Michigan, was hit by shrapnel in the leg and hip and left bleeding on the floor of the airport for an hour according to this father.

Jean Bellin told CNN: “My son is doing well considering. He went through his first operation today. Because he was left for about an hour on the floor in the airport in Brussels he lost a lot of blood. So they stabilised him and now he is going to go through another operation.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Brazilian basketball player Sebastien Bellin lies wounded on the floor of Zaventem airport in Brussels, Belgium. Photograph: Ketevan Kardava/AP

“I spoke with him twice. He is obviously stunned. The first words out of his mouth were ‘You wouldn’t believe the carnage I saw around’.



“He was very clear and articulate even though he was obviously in a lot of pain. The second time I spoke to him he was obviously sedated and feeling a lot more tired.



“All I know is that force of the blast where he was was sufficient to throw him up 6ft up in to the air and he landed back and he got shrapnel in his left leg and his right hip.



“Very quickly there were photos of him circulating in the Belgium press and, because we have a huge network of friends in Belgium, they reached out and sent a picture of him on the floor and asked - is that really Seb?



“And that was 4 in the morning. California time. That is how we found out.”











Four Morman missionaries were also injured. Three, Mason Wells, 19, Richard Norby, 66, and Joseph Empey, 20, from Utah were seriously injured, officials from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints said.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mormon missionaries Mason Wells and Joseph Empey who were injured in Tuesday’s explosions. Photograph: Joseph Empey/AP

The trio had been dropping off fellow missionary, Fanny Clain, at the airport, who also suffered minor injuries.

Wells had also been in Paris at the time of last year’s attacks, and was standing at the finish line of the Boston Marathon when it was attacked, the NY Daily News reported. “It’s a blessing from God he’s alive,” his father Chad Wells told ABC. “I think the Boston experience helped him to stay calm.”

An unnamed US Air Force pilot, his wife, and their four children, were also injured, it’s been confirmed. Starbucks said one of its employees received minor injuries from the blast outside its store at the airport.







