Many famous Armenian journalists are living in Brussels due to family circumstances. Fortunately, they are all well-off. We tried to determine personal feelings of some of them pertaining to the chain of terroristic acts in Brussels today.
Elina Chilingaryan, a “Radio Liberty” correspondent, said, “All of us have somehow felt the impact of all this on our skin, as this is not only a human tragedy, not only physical damage was caused to all of us who are living in Belgium, but also a psychological damage, which was one of the main goals of the terrorists. They wanted to psychologically keep people down, disseminate an atmosphere of fear and to threaten by their power, saying that if you act regardless of anything, the worse can happen. Zaventem is the only airport in Brussels, we all were often using those metro stations as it was the one taking people to the center and was close to the European institutions. And each of us could be projected in this situation that we could be instead of these 34 victims and more than 200 wounded. My husband also uses this metro line and used to pass by this “Schumann” station to get to work. Accidentally, he left the house today a little late. He missed his train and got on the next by accidentally escaping the blast and was evacuated on half way … It is a very difficult situation. We realize that he was lucky but at the same time, the risk is very close.”
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Tsovinar Nazaryan, an employee with “Ar” TV station, “Republic of Armenia” and other media, informed that she had learned about the explosions in the morning from the Facebook news feed, “Our house is 4-5 km away from the center. Horns of police and ambulance vehicles were heard in our streets, there is also a hospital nearby. At 11 o’clock, Areg (Tsovinar Nazaryan’s husband. – edit) called me on the phone and said that the connection is very poor, everything is closed, including the public transport, and they most likely will have to walk home half a day. After that, no contact was possible until Areg reached home. The Internet was uninterrupted but the phone lines failed because of being overloaded. I ran to the store to buy products. At 11:20, the store manager said that they are closed, to go to the cash to pay. The children were in school, they were left to go their home on regular time but without any after-school classes. Now, the quality of connection seems to be restored but the Internet is still the main source to give new about us and get news from others. Incidentally, today, I was almost losing by discount card in the shop twice, both times Muslim women have found it and returned.”
