Belgian woman killed in New York attack: minister
A handout photograph obtained courtesy of the St. Charles County Dept. of Corrections in the mid-western US state of Missouri on Tuesday shows Sayfullah Habibullahevic Saipov, the suspected driver who killed eight people in New York. AFP photo
A Belgian woman was among the people killed when a pickup driver mowed down pedestrians and cyclists in New York on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said.
US officials said eight people died and eleven others were seriously injured in the first deadly attack on the city since the September 11, 2001 Al-Qaeda hijackings.
"I am deeply saddened to announce a Belgian victim in Manhattan -- I express my condolences to the family and friends," Reynders, who is also deputy prime minister, said on Twitter.
"My thoughts are with the victims of the attack in New York," he said.
Reynders told the Belga news agency that "it was a woman from Roulers in western Flanders who was on a city trip with with her sister and her mother" in New York.
Belgium's consul general was helping the family, he added.
A little later, Reynders announced that other Belgians were among those injured in the attacks.
"Three Belgian nations were injured in Manhattan and are in the operating room. Our consul general will help them," he wrote on Twitter.
The truck driver struck just blocks from the 9/11 Memorial, on the West Side of Lower Manhattan, and close to schools and a park at 3:05pm (1905 GMT) as children and their parents geared up to celebrate Halloween.
President Donald Trump, who has curbed the number of migrants entering the United States, swiftly declared that the US "must not" allow Islamic State jihadists to "return, or enter, our country after defeating them" overseas.
