Members of metro Atlanta’s Belgian community came together Thursday to mourn the terror attack on their homeland and vow to stand strong in the face of it.
“A lot of sadness,” said Patrick Vanbiesen, of DeKalb County, who was born in Brussels and on Thursday wore the country’s red, yellow and black flag around his shoulders.
The 50 people who gathered at Bantam + Biddy restaurant in Atlanta shared stories of loved ones who had close calls, as well as their frantic worry after hearing the news.
Genevieve Verbeek, the Belgian consul general in Atlanta, said she was jarred awake by the bing-bing-bing of text after text coming into her phone.
Her nephew, she learned, had been in the airport and suffered a pierced eardrum from the explosion.
She said the world must stand up against terrorists.
“It will have to be defeated,” she said. “We will not let our values disappear, to people who have no values.”
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