On Tuesday, bombs went off at Brussels’ main airport and near the Maelbeek subway station – killing more than 30 and injuring at least 200. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took credit for the attacks, stating on its Amaq news agency that they chose to retaliate because Brussels supported an international coalition against ISIS, according to CBS News. Belgian prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw named brothers El Bakraoui and Khalid El Bakraoui as the perpetrators. The attacks happened within an hour of each other.
As Belgium and the world reel in the aftermath of the attacks, details are slowly emerging. Peruvian Adelma Tapia Ruiz, 37, is the first confirmed fatality, the BBC reports. Adelma’s Belgian husband Christophe Delcambe, and their twin 4-year-old daughters Maureen and Alondra survived the airport bombing.
The girls scurried off to play in a hallway, and because Christophe followed them, they were saved.
Adelma’s brother, Fernando Tapia Coral, explained that she planned to head to New York to meet her sisters, before returning to Peru. “It is very complicated to describe the pain that we are feeling at home, but as the older brother, I know I have to try,” he wrote on Facebook. “It is more difficult still to understand the way that destiny has snatched life of a loved one, but even more incomprehensible is not being able to be close to her in this family tragedy that today knocked on the doors of my family. Early this morning in the Brussels airport, my sister Adelma Tapia died in the terrorist attack, unable to survive the jihadist attack that we’ll never understand.”
Adelma hoped to open a Peruvian restaurant in Brussels.