My Life on the Line: Trapped in Brussels Bombings Chaos

A firsthand account of the Brussels terrorist attacks on March 2016

Rui Alves
The Memoirist
Published in
8 min readMar 29, 2023

--

A photo taken at the Brussels subway line shows one of the STIB trains stopped at an empty station. This train is similar to the vehicle that was attacked during the Brussels bombings on 22 March 2016.
Brussels STIB subway | Photo by Sebastien LE DEROUT on Unsplash

The morning of March 22, 2016, was just like any other weekday morning for me.

I woke up feeling a bit groggy, but the enticing aroma of coffee and toast drew me out of bed. Little did I know that the day ahead would be anything but…

--

--

Rui Alves
The Memoirist

I'm a language teacher, linguist and published author (who joined the Army and worked for the EU). A publisher, digital ronin, musician and alchemist of sound.