One Belgian killed and three others injured in terror attack in New York

A Belgian woman is among eight people killed in the truck attack in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon. Three other Belgians, a father, mother and son, were among 12 people injured in the incident and are being treated in hospital, Belgian foreign minister Didier Reynders told media. Two of the injured Belgians are in a critical state, it has been reported.

The Belgian victim has been named as 31-year-old Ann-Laure Decadt, the mother of three-year-old and three-month-old sons, who is from Roeselare in West Flanders. She was visiting the city with her mother and two sisters and mother; her husband and children had not traveled with her. The three injured Belgians caught up in the attack were not of the same family.

Among the other victims were five Argentinian friends in New York on a school reunion. The two other victims of the deadly attack were from the United States. The 12 injured include children and have serious but non-life threatening injuries, said local emergency services.

The truck drove through a bike lane in the lower Manhattan area of the city for more than a dozen blocks before ramming into a school bus in an apparent ISIS-inspired attack. The 29 year-old driver, Sayfullo Saipov, was shot and detained by police as he ran through traffic with fake guns, reported local media.

Saipov, an Uzbekistan national, was charged with terrorism offences on Wednesday when he appeared before a New York federal courthouse in a wheelchair. Saipov is currently being treated in hospital for a gunshot wound.

The incident is the worst terror attack in the United States since September 11, 2001. Police are investigating Saipov’s background, his planning of the attack and his links to ISIS organisations.