Brussels attack one year on: Surviving taxi driver feels abandoned

One year after a terrorist attack in Brussels which took the lives of two Swedes and injured a third, the Life for Brussels association has said that the struggles of a fourth victim, the taxi driver caught up in the attack, are "forgotten" and "ignored".

On 16 October 2023, Tunisian Abdesalem Lassoued opened fire on a taxi near Place Sainctelette, taking the lives of two of the passengers. They were Swedish football supporters who had come to support their national team, which was playing Belgium at the Roi Baudouin stadium that evening.

A third passenger, a Swede aged around 70, was seriously injured in the vehicle.

“That evening, he [the taxi driver] met the terrorist's gaze and since then has not been spared from the downward spiral of post-traumatic stress disorder and has been recognised as unfit to return to work,” said the association, which aims to provide aid and support to victims of acts of terrorism.

Shortly after the shooting, the assailant claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted on social networks and was intercepted and shot dead by police in a cafe in Schaerbeek the next day.

In a ceremony held on Wednesday, Life for Brussels paid tribute to the deceased victims and their families, as well as to the injured man and his loved ones, while expressing its support for the taxi driver, who they said had been largely ignored.

“My family and I have been completely forgotten, left out in the cold,” said the taxi driver. “Every day is a struggle, and sometimes I wonder how much longer I can go on. Life no longer has any meaning. I relive this day endlessly, and I wonder why no one considers me.”

Despite his status as a victim of an act of terrorism, “this man is not entitled to compensation for the deep scars left by this night of horror”, Life for Brussels said.

"This injustice is not the result of a failure on the part of the insurance companies, but of a legislative vacuum which, at the time, did not allow for adequate compensation for such acts."

The commemorative ceremony for the victims of the attack was held in the presence of Belgian prime minister Alexander De Croo and his Swedish counterpart Ulf Kristersson.

The ceremony opened with cello music. The two prime ministers, together with the Belgian justice minister Paul Van Tigchelt, interior minister Annelies Verlinden, Brussels mayor Philippe Close, and the commander of the Brussels-Capital/Ixelles police zone, Michel Goovaerts, then paid tribute to the victims by observing a minute's silence.

The families of the victims, as well as the taxi driver accompanied by his wife, were also present.

The two prime ministers then laid wreaths of flowers in tribute to the deceased, along with a Swedish football shirt, at the foot of the glass building.