JUSTIN SHULTS, 30

STEPHANIE SHULTS

A Facebook photograph shows Stephanie Moore Shults and her husband, Justin Shults, originally from Kentucky and Tennessee, respectively. ReutersJustin Shults was originally from Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and his wife, Stephanie, was a native of Lexington, Kentucky.

They graduated together from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management.

They were dropping Stephanie’s mother off at the airport. They waved goodbye to her just moments before the bombs went off, a family member said. Her mother, Carolyn Moore, was knocked to the ground by the explosion. She searched but could not find them in the chaos. They were identified as among the dead on March 26.

 

Relatives described them as a generous and kind pair, who moved to Brussels for work and made the most of their European lives. They traveled to a new country every month and invited their American relatives to visit.

ALEXANDER PINCZOWSKI, 29

SASCHA PINCZOWSKI, 26

Two New York City siblings are among the dead in the attacks in Brussels, their family said Friday.

Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, Dutch nationals who lived in the U.S., were headed home to the states when a bomb exploded at the airport Tuesday. Alexander, 29, was on the phone with his mother in Holland when the line went dead, said James Cain, whose daughter Cameron was engaged to Alexander.

“We received confirmation this morning from Belgian authorities and the Dutch embassy of the positive identification of the remains of Alexander and Sascha from the terrorist bombing at the Brussels Airport,” Cain said on behalf of the Pinczowski family. “We are grateful to have closure on this tragic situation, and are thankful for the thoughts and prayers from all. The family is in the process of making arrangements.”

Alexander Pinczowski had traveled to Holland to work on a craft-related business that he and Cameron were going to start together, Cain said.

The couple met six years ago while taking summer courses in Durham, North Carolina. They hadn’t set a wedding date but had planned to marry within the year, Cain said.

He called Alexander “intimidatingly smart, a brilliant young man.”

Sascha Pinczowski was a 2015 graduate of Marymount Manhattan College in New York with a degree in business. She spent last summer as an intern at a catering company, Shiraz Events.

Shiraz Events President Shai Tertner called her “a bright, hardworking young woman, with a great career ahead of her.”

Both siblings had hoped to obtain U.S. citizenship one day, said Cain, a retired ambassador to Denmark.

Mayor Bill de Blasio tweeted that New York had lost “two of our own” in the attacks.

“Two young siblings from our city were taken from us far too soon, and our hearts break for the family and friends of Sascha and Alexander,” de Blasio said in a statement. “New York City has shown time and again that we will not succumb to the threat of terrorism, and we will not live in fear. Today we vow to continue standing up for freedom and democracy in honor of those we have lost.”

Gov. Andrew Cuomo also extended his sympathies to the family.

“Their lives were cut short by cowards who have chosen extremism and hate instead of peace and unity. On behalf of all New Yorkers, I extend our deepest prayers and condolences to the Pinczowski family, as well as all those who lost loved ones in Tuesday’s heartbreaking attacks,” Cuomo said.

ADELMA MARINA TAPIA RUIZ, 37

Born in Peru, Adelma Tapia Ruiz dreamed of opening a restaurant. She had lived in Belgium for nine years but still cooked the recipes of her homeland, preparing the spicy chicken dish aji de gallina for a food festival organized by the Peruvian consulate in Brussels last year.

Tapia was killed when a bomb tore through the departures area of Brussels airport on Tuesday, her family confirmed. A split-second decision saved her husband and 4-year-old twin daughters Maureen and Alondra from sharing her fate.

Her Belgian husband, Christophe Delcambe, had taken the girls out of the check-in line to play for a moment when a loud explosion ripped through the concourse. One daughter was struck in the arm by shrapnel and is being treated in a local hospital.

Her brother, Fernando Tapia, told The Associated Press his sister was preparing to catch a flight to New York to meet up with two sisters who live in the United States.

Tapia and her husband lived in the town of Tubize, south of Brussels, and her brother said she will likely be buried in her adopted homeland.

DAVID DIXON, 53

David Dixon had texted family members to say he was safe after two bombs severely damaged Brussels airport, but he was killed shortly after when a bomber attacked the subway system.

Dixon, a British citizen, was working as a computer programmer at the time of his death, which was confirmed Friday by Britain’s Foreign Office.

Friends and family had been searching for him since he failed to arrive at work Tuesday morning in the hours after the bomb attacks. Press reports indicated he lived in Brussels with his partner and their son.

“This morning we received the most terrible and devastating news about our beloved David,” said a statement sent out by officials on behalf of Dixon’s family Friday. “At this most painful time our family would gratefully appreciate it if we could be left alone to grieve in private.”

Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Dixon, who was originally from Hartlepool, in northeastern England.

ELITA BORBOR WEAH, 40

One of the victims of the Brussels bombings was on her way to Rhode Island for her stepfather’s funeral when she was killed, her relatives said Friday.

Elita Borbor Weah texted family members a photo of herself at the Brussels airport shortly before bombs went off inside Tuesday.

Her large extended family from Zwedru, Liberia, had dispersed across West Africa, Europe and the United States following Liberia’s civil wars. The 40-year-old had settled in the Netherlands, where she was living with her 13-year-old daughter.

Her brother Oscar Weah, of Providence, was shaking and in tears Friday as he described how his older sister helped care for him over the years.

“She had a good heart,” said 14-year-old niece Eden Weah. “She was always worried about everybody.”

This week was supposed to be a bittersweet reunion of family members who came to Providence to mourn James Wah, who was 87 when he died in February. His funeral is Saturday.

Instead, the family patriarch’s children and stepchildren prepared for his Friday evening wake — and worked to make arrangements to care for Elita Weah’s daughter, who had stayed behind in the Netherlands.

Eden Weah said she had been excited to see her aunt, who last visited Rhode Island for a wedding.

“I told her my birthday was coming up,” she said. “She said, ‘Baby, don’t worry, I’ll come.’ ”

BART MIGOM, 21

Belgian college student Bart Migom was heading to Atlanta to visit his American girlfriend, Emily Eisenman, on Tuesday.

Migom sent Eisenman a message while on the train from Bruges, where he lives, to the Brussels airport, saying he was excited to see her, Eisenman told CNN on Wednesday.

“That was the last I heard of him,” Eisenman told CNN, adding that she was expecting to hear from him once he arrived at the airport, or picked up his boarding pass.

On Friday, Belgium’s De Standaard newspaper reported that Migom was among the dead, confirmed by his college, Howest, which heard from his parents.

FABIENNE VANSTEENKISTE, 51

The family of Fabienne Vansteenkiste confirmed Friday that their mother had died in the Brussels blasts. “We learned of your death today after a long and terrible wait,” the family wrote in a note on Facebook, written as a love letter to Vansteenkiste.

“I would so much like to give you a hug like we used to and smell you and hear your voice,” one of her children wrote. “It will take time to accept this. But we are strong (we got that from you). We will take care of each other. Do not worry.”

Vansteenkiste was believed to be in the airport Tuesday morning.

JENNIFER SCINTU WAETZMANN, 29

Jennifer Scintu Waetzmann and her husband, Lars Waetzmann, 30, from the German border town of Aachen, were at the American Airlines ticket desk to catch a flight to New York – a trip they had been planning since they got married about a year ago.

Aachen police announced via their official website Friday that Jennifer, a coach for an Aachen youth handball club, was identified among the dead.

Lars has been in a coma since the blast, but the family had not been able to get word of Jennifer’s whereabouts after the blast.

According to her social media accounts, Jennifer worked as a customer service coordinator for Stedman GmbH, a maker and marketer of printable promotional clothing.

LEOPOLD HECHT, 20

Leopold Hecht was gravely wounded in the bombing at Maelbeek subway station and died later of his injuries.

The rector of Saint-Louis University in Brussels, Pierre Jadoul, said Hecht was “one of the unfortunate victims of these barbaric acts.”

“There are no words to describe our dismay at this news,” he said in a letter to students.

Classmates lit handles and left flowers outside the university in memory of Hecht, whose Facebook profile includes pictures of a smiling young man on the ski slopes and in the great outdoors.

LOUBNA LAFQUIRI, 34

Loubna Lafquiri’s family announced late Thursday night that she had died in the attacks, after three anguished days of waiting for news.

The family memorialized Lafquiri on Facebook as “a mother of three magnificent boys, an exemplary teacher, a sister devoted to her community, torn from her loved ones by cowards.”

Lafquiri was a physical education teacher at an Islamic school in Brussels. She is believed to have died in the blast at the metro station Tuesday morning on her way there.

OLIVIER DELESPESSE, 45

Civil servant Olivier Delespesse died in the bombing at Maelbeek metro station, according to his employer, the Federation Wallonie-Bruxelles.

PATRICIA RIZZO, 48 

The Italian foreign ministry says an Italian woman who has been missing in Brussels since the attacks this week has been confirmed among the dead from the subway bomb blast.

The ministry said Friday evening that Belgium authorities had confirmed that Patricia Rizzo’s body has been identified and that she died in the city’s metro station attack.

Relatives had been searching for her since Tuesday’s attacks by extremists on at a Brussels metro station and airport. She regularly took the subway to her job in the Belgian capital.

Rizzo was an Italian national, born in Belgium to an Italian family from Enna, according to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Rizzo worked at the European Research Council, an organization established by the European Commission to fund scientific and technological research projects in the European Union.

ANDRE ADAM, 79

His family on Friday announced the death of Andre Adam, a former Belgian ambassador to the United States, who was killed in the blast at the Brussels airport. His wife, Danielle Adam, was wounded in the blast.

The couple met during Andre Adam’s first posting to Cuba in 1964, his family recounted, and the Adams has witnessed much global turmoil since then. Following Adam’s foreign postings, the family lived in Paris during student protests there in 1968, in Kinshasa during the dictatorship of Mobutu Sese Seko, and in London during the Irish bombing campaign.

“He was saddened by the rise of the Mulim Brotherhood in Algiers, then a horrified witness to massacres in Lubumbashi in the ’90s,” his family said in a Facebook post memorializing him.

Adam was also his country’s representative to the United Nations in the late 1990s, before he and his wife retired to the south of France.

“All his life he had worked towards the peaceful resolution of conflict in the world,” his family wrote. They said he died protecting his wife in the airport.

NIC COOPMAN, 49

Nic Coopman was killed Tuesday in a blast at the Brussels airport, where he was waiting for a flight to Zurich for work, said Craig Thomas, a vice president at Kansas-based Wenger Manufacturing. Thomas said Coopman, who worked in the company’s Brussels office, was confirmed dead.

Coopman was a controls specialist working on electrical and automation projects. He had worked for the company for 15 years. Thomas said Coopman was married.

CHINESE NATIONAL

The Chinese Embassy in Belgium said Friday that a Chinese national was killed in the attacks. He was identified only by his surname – Deng. No further details were released.