Lipscomb students studying abroad in Vienna, Florence and London are safe and accounted for after Tuesday morning’s terrorist attacks in the Brussels international airport and metro station, according to a university spokesperson.
And just as is the case for citizens in Brussels, the strategy right now is to shelter in place.
“No one is scheduled for travel during the week, and weekend plans will be evaluated in a few days,” said Kim Chaudoin, assistant vice president for communication and marketing.
Three bombs total went off Tuesday morning – two at Zaventem airport, killing at least 11 people, and one at the Maelbeek metro station, killing at least 20 people, according to Belgium’s health minister. Some international news sources have put the number as high as 34 dead so far. ISIS — the so-called Islamic State — has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
It was more than a little too close for comfort for some Lipscomb students who had been at the scene of the terrorist slaughter just a day before.
Lipscomb sophomores Liv Bell and Ashley Harman and junior Courtney Craun were traveling from Paris to Florence and had a flight out of Brussels to Milan early Monday morning. The students arrived at the airport at 4:30 a.m. and departed to Milan at 9:30 a.m.
“We woke up this morning with the news about the attacks and were shocked,” Bell said. “Some of the videos and pictures show where we were sitting, and that just blew our minds.”
Belgium has been called the “hub of terrorism” by experts in counter-terrorism. The attacks took place just four days after the main organizer of the November 2015 Paris attacks, Salah Abdeslam, was arrested in his Brussels neighborhood, where he’d apparently been since that mass murder that claimed 130 lives.
“I was already a little uneasy about flying into Belgium because of the state that it is in,” Bell said.
But she said she believes God was looking out for her and her traveling party in the midst of chaos.
“The three of us know that God is good,” she said. “He definitely had a hand in getting us out of the airport yesterday morning instead of this morning.”
And a group of students from Lipscomb’s sister school, Freed-Hardeman, are also safe and currently staying with a Lipscomb group.
In an e-mail, Chaudoin said that students in Lipscomb’s London group, led by faculty member Matt Hearn, became aware of a group of five students from Freed-Hardeman University, who were part of Freed-Hardeman’s study abroad program based in Verviers, Belgium, and who were on free travel in London.
Those Freed-Hardeman students were staying in a hostel during their free travel and were supposed to return to Belgium Tuesday. The hostel was within walking distance of where Lipscomb students are staying in London.
“Kate Minchew, the assistant site director, and a few Lipscomb students walked to the hostel and got them and walked them back to the Lipscomb location,” Chaudoin said. “Kate talked to them, calmed them and made them feel welcome. She got them settled into rooms at the Lipscomb flat, where the group will be staying for a few days.”
The Freed-Hardeman group will stay with the Lipscomb group until it is safe to return to Belgium.
There are 15 Lipscomb students in the Lipscomb in London group who will return to Nashville on April 30.
Lumination will update the story as more information is received.
Photo and additional reporting by Erin Turner