Brussels, 22nd of March 2016,

3 suicide bombers blow themselves up

and strike the whole world,

in everyone's soul.

32 dead, over 300 injured and many more traumatised.

Crushing chaos, and a deafening silence.

Exactly five years after the events, photographer Lieve Blancquaert looks back on that pitch-black day in our history: 22nd of March 2016. What no one had thought, but what everyone feared, happens: an attack on Zaventem airport and the metro in Maalbeek. The damage is enormous, the human suffering immense.

3-part documentary series by photographer Lieve Blancquaert and director Nathalie Basteyns about the attacks in Brussels on 22nd of March 2016. (Production company De Mensen).

"Since that day, there is a 'before' and an 'after' March 22 2016. For each of us, but certainly for all the victims, relatives and aid workers who were there that day. Zaventem airport was always a place with a special feeling for me. You knew, if you were there, that behind that departure hall an adventure awaited you. Since March 22 2016, things have been different. Since that day, I would rather be out of there as soon as possible. I also think each time about all those people who were there together that morning. In the airport, but also in the Maalbeek metro. Those who were suddenly connected to each other by the attacks. I wonder how they are doing? And what is the impact of that bomb on their lives, their thinking? March 22 2016 should remain in our collective memory. For me, it is an important moment in our history. Our 9/11. The moment when everything changed."

– Lieve Blancquaert

Blancquaert photographs and portrays some witnesses of the attacks in Brussels. They don't know each other, but are connected by that one dramatic event: they were all there, in Zaventem airport, where a bomb changed their lives forever.