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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Jennifer Rankin in Brussels

‘It is a shock’: survivors of Brussels bombings face pension cuts 10 years on

Walter Benjamin walks through a crowded airport terminal
Walter Benjamin walks through Zaventem airport, where he was injured in one of the bombings. He lost one leg and had 17 operations to save the other. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters

A decade after he suffered life-changing injuries in the terrorist attacks that hit Brussels airport and a metro station, Walter Benjamin has been having sleepless nights. Not only because of the hellish time he lived through on 22 March 2016. Last year, he says, his monthly pension was drastically cut to recoup “overpaid” survivors’ compensation.

Benjamin, now 56, was standing three metres away from the second attacker at Zaventem airport when the bomb detonated. Three suicide bombers killed 32 people that day and left more than 320 people with the kinds of injuries doctors usually find in war zones.

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