Metro station hit in Brussels attack to reopen on Monday

Brussels’ Maelbeek metro station, which was hit by one of the Islamic State suicide bombings a month ago that killed 32 people, will reopen on Monday, transport officials said.

The Belgian parliament’s commission of inquiry into the attacks visited both Maalbeek station, near the EU’s headquarters, and Brussels Airport as part of its mission to shed light on both attacks by the end of the year.

Maelbeek station has been closed since Khalid El-Bakraoui detonated a bomb at 9.11 am on March 22 that killed 16 people on a train, part of coordinated attacks that hit the airport in Zaventem neighbourhood just over an hour earlier.

Maelbeek will resume service Monday from 6 am until 10 pm, like the rest of the network, the Brussels public transport service spokeswoman Francoise Ledune told AFP on Friday. Reconstruction work will be completed Friday evening, Ledune added.

One of the station’s eight tiled portraits by artist Benoit van Innis remains damaged and will be covered up. The same artist is now working on a project to commemorate the massacre that is due to be completed in June, Ledune said. “In the meantime, we plan to set aside a remembrance wall where people can leave messages, words of hope,” she added.