• 31 detained over brazen $50M diamond heist at Belgian airport

    Mozkito / Photonews via Getty Images, file

    The burned-out remains of the van used in the Feb. 18 diamond heist are shown in Zaventem, Belgium. Using a van and car to break down a security fence, a gang of robbers stole diamonds estimated to be worth $50 million from a plane bound for Zurich. Police have now arrested 31 people.

    By Raf Casert, The Associated Press

    BRUSSELS - Authorities claimed a major breakthrough on Wednesday in their investigation of a spectacular $50 million diamond heist, detaining at least 31 people in a three-nation sweep some three months after robbers pulled off the theft with clockwork precision at Brussels Airport

    A Frenchman who is believed to have been one of the actual robbers at the airport was arrested in France, while six to eight people were detained in Geneva, and 24 in and around Brussels. Police did not indicate what the other suspects' roles might have been.

    What's more, police say they have proof that diamonds found in Switzerland were part of the cache that was spirited away in the brazen Feb. 18 robbery that ranks among the biggest diamond heists of recent times.

    After two months of investigation on some of the suspects, police moved in. Suspects in France and Switzerland were detained on Tuesday, and the following day Belgian police carried out a massive operation, with 250 police involved in 40 house searches.

    "In Switzerland, we have found diamonds that we can already say are coming from the heist, and in Belgium large amounts of money have been found. And the investigation is still ongoing," said Jean-Marc Meilleur, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor's office. He said police had also found luxury cars.

    Meilleur was scant on detail, yielding no clues how police got on the trail of the suspects. Authorities were expected to announce later Wednesday how many of the detainees would be charged and arrested.

    In Geneva, a police statement said that "a very important quantity of diamonds was seized" during the sweep "coming from the spectacular heist at Brussels airport." While Belgian authorities spoke of six detentions in Switzerland, Geneva police put it at eight, including a businessman and a lawyer. Authorities were alerted when suddenly a member of a major criminal organization appeared in their city. The value of the diamonds was still being estimated.

    It was the first breakthrough in a robbery that many had started comparing to an "Ocean's Eleven"-type Hollywood script for its clinically clean execution during which no one was injured.

    On a cold winter evening, the diamonds had been loaded on a plane bound for Zurich when robbers, dressed in dark police clothing and hoods, drove through a hole they had cut in the airport fence in two black cars with blue police lights flashing. They drove onto the tarmac, approached the plane, brandished machine guns, offloaded the diamonds, then made their getaway in an operation that barely took five minutes. Later that night, investigators found the charred remains of a van most likely used in the heist, but little else.

    The stolen parcels contained both rough and polished stones. The trail ran dry until the surprise announcement on Wednesday.

    Meilleur said that the man held in France is suspected to be one of the robbers. "This person has a very heavy judicial background in France and his extradition to Belgium has been requested."

    Belgian authorities said that about 10 of the 24 people detained in Belgium were known criminals. The suspects ranged in age from 30 to 50, they said.

    The diamond industry, too, was totally caught by surprise by Wednesday's developments. "But we can only be happy," said Caroline De Wolf, spokeswoman for the Antwerp World Diamond Center.

    The Associated Press contributed to this report.

    Related:

    This story was originally published on Wed May 8, 2013 6:40 AM EDT

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Businessman slain in Acapulco's 2nd violent attack involving foreigners in 3 weeks

    A Belgian citizen shot to death in the Pacific resort of Acapulco near the site of the Mexican Open tennis tournament was a businessman, local prosecutors in Mexico said Sunday.

    Saturday's killing was the second violent attack involving foreigners in Acapulco in less than three weeks. On Feb. 4, a band of masked gunmen invaded a beachfront home and raped six visiting Spanish women.

    The Guerrero state district attorney's office identified the dead man as 59-year-old Jan Sarens, an executive with the family-owned Belgian firm Sarens, which supplies heavy transportation equipment for construction, mining and energy. It has offices in 50 countries, including Mexico.

    Celia Gomez, an attorney for the firm's Mexico office, said it had not identified the body. Gomez said the company had a board member named Jans Sarens who lived in Mexico.

    The man was shot to death Saturday afternoon in a shopping center parking lot, and his body was found outside a Mercedes Benz car with Mexico City plates.

    Authorities in Guerrero state said in a statement that the killing was being investigated and the motive for the attack had still not been determined.

    Violence and crime, much of it blamed on drug gangs, have grown worse in Acapulco in recent years.

    The Associated Press

    Related:

    Mexico security forces accused of abducting, murdering civilians

    Mexicans weary of drug gangs form vigilante patrols

  • Robbers snatch $50 million of diamonds off plane in Belgium

    Mozkito / Photonews via Getty Images

    Firemen extinguish the burnt out remains of the van used in the heist near Brussels Airport on Feb. 18, 2013 in Zaventem, Belgium. Using a van and car to break down the security fence a gang of robbers stole diamonds estimated to be worth 50 million euros from a security van.

    By Raf Casert, The Associated Press

    (Editor's note: An earlier version of this article led to a correction)

    Eight armed and masked men made a hole in a security fence at the international airport in Brussels, Belgium, drove onto the tarmac and snatched millions of dollars' worth of diamonds from the hold of a Swiss-bound plane without firing a shot, authorities said Tuesday.

    The gang used two vehicles in their daring raid Monday, dragged the cache of stones and sped off into the darkness, said Anja Bijnens, spokeswoman for the Brussels prosecutor's office.

    Police found a burnt-out vehicle close to the airport later Monday night and said they were still looking for clues.

    The heist was estimated at some $50 million in diamonds, said Caroline De Wolf of the Antwerp World Diamond Centre.

    "What we are talking about is obviously a gigantic sum," De Wolf told VRT network.

    The thieves targeted a diamond transfer at an airport in Brussels, cutting a hole in a security fence then making a beeline for a delivery van that was loading a plane with the diamonds. NBC's Keir Simmons reports.

    An airport spokesman said the robbers made a hole in the perimeter fence and drove up to the Swiss passenger plane, which was ready to leave.

    The robbers got out of the car, flashed their weapons and took the loot from the hold, said airport spokesman Jan Van Der Crujsse. Without firing a shot they drove off through the same hole in the fence, completing the spectacular theft within minutes, he said.

    Van Der Crujsse could not explain how the area could be so vulnerable to theft. "We abide by the most stringent rules," he said.

    The Swiss flight, bound for Zurich and operated by Helvetic Airways, was canceled. Swiss, an affiliate of Germany's Deutsche Lufthansa AG, declined to comment on the heist, citing the ongoing judicial investigation.

    The insurance for air transport — handled sometimes by airlines themselves or external insurance companies — is usually relatively cheap because it's considered to be the safest way of transporting small high value items, logistics experts say.

    Unlike a car or a truck, an airplane cannot be attacked by robbers once it's on its way, and it is considered to be very safe before the departure and after the plane's arrival because the aircraft is always within the confines of an airport — which are normally highly secured.

    Philip Baum, an aviation security consultant in Britain, said the robbery was worrying — not because the fence was breached, but because the response did not appear to have been immediate. That, he said, raised questions as to whether alarms were ringing in the right places.

    "It does seem very worrying that someone can actually have the time to drive two vehicles onto the airport, effect the robbery, and drive out without being intercepted," Baum said.

    That amount of time would also allow someone to board the plane, he said.

    A decade ago the Belgian city of Antwerp, the world capital of diamond-cutting, was the scene of what was probably one of the biggest diamond heists in history, when robbers took precious stones, jewels, gold and securities from the high-security vaults at Antwerp's Diamond Center, yielding loot that police in 2003 estimated to be worth about $100 million.

    Antwerp's Diamond Center stands in the heart of the high-surveillance diamond district where police and dozens of cameras work around the clock, and security has been beefed up further since the spectacular 2003 robbery.

    This story was originally published on Tue Feb 19, 2013 4:13 AM EST

    © 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

  • Belgian who imprisoned, murdered girls seeks early release

    Francois Lenoir / Reuters

    Belgian child murderer Marc Dutroux (C), whose crimes horrified Belgium in the 1990s, is escorted by police officers at the Palace of Justice in Brussels on Monday.

    By Ben Deighton, Reuters

    BRUSSELS — Belgium's most notorious killer launched a bid for early release on Monday, despite little chance of getting parole.

    Marc Dutroux, who was convicted of the kidnapping and rape of six girls and the murder of four of them in the 1990s, put his case to judges in a closed-door hearing in Brussels.

    The case touches a nerve in Belgium because of the horrific nature of the murders, and the fact that Belgian police visited one of Dutroux's houses while two victims, both eight years old, were being held there without finding them. The two subsequently starved to death in a makeshift dungeon.


    Under Belgian law, criminals can be freed after serving a third of their sentences, or after 15 years in the case of those who have received life, a perpetual sentence in Belgium.

    However, thousands of protesters called for tougher rules on convicts when Dutroux's ex-wife was granted conditional freedom last year and moved to a convent. She had to request parole several times before it was granted.

    Before Monday's hearing, armed police placed razor wire barriers along the side of the courtroom, an unusual security measure in Belgium. Officials also erected a metal detector across the center of Belgium's main courthouse.

    Dutroux, who was arrested in 1996, was sentenced to life in 2004. He served two extra years under a separate charge, meaning he is free to request early release this year.

    The court will discuss Dutroux's request with prison officials, and issue its judgement during a public hearing on Feb. 18, although it is not clear if Dutroux will attend.

    "The decision of the tribunal will be delivered in a public audience here," Luc Hennaert, court president told reporters after the hearing.

  • Layoffs spark violent protests in Belgium

    Laurent Dubrule / Reuters

    Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege steel plants clash with riot policemen during a demonstration outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur on Jan. 29. Arcelor Mittal, the world's largest steel producer, plans to shut a coke plant and six finishing lines at its site in Liege, Belgium, affecting 1,300 employees, the group said last week.

    Yves Herman / Reuters

    Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege steel plants clash with riot policemen during a demonstration outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur on Jan. 29.

    Geert Vanden Wijngaert / AP

    A steel worker from ArcelorMittal in Liege, Belgium, comforts a colleague during a protest near the Walloon Minister President's office in Namur, Belgium, on Jan. 29. The world's leading steel and mining company ArcelorMittal announced Thursday it will close a coke plant and six production lines in Belgium, in a move that threatens 1,300 jobs.

    Laurent Dubrule / Reuters

    Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege steel plants clash with riot policemen during a demonstration outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur on Jan. 29.

    Laurent Dubrule / Reuters

    Arcelor Mittal workers from several Liege argue with riot policemen during a demonstration outside the Walloon Region parliament in Namur on Jan. 29.

    Related: Belgian steel workers clash with police over job losses

    Steelworkers from ArcelorMittal protested in Belgium following the announcement of the closure of a plant. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

     

  • Faced with blindness, deaf twins choose euthanasia

    By Annabel Roberts, Correspondent, NBC News

    A pair of adult identical twins in Belgium have been legally killed at their request, the men's doctor told journalists.

    The 45-years-old men, who were born deaf, spent their lives side-by-side — growing up together and then, as adults, sharing an apartment and working as cobblers together, according to Belgian media reports.

    The men’s names have not been released but photographs of the identical twins from the Antwerp region have been made available to some media outlets.

    Their doctor, David Dufour, told Belgium’s RTL Television over the weekend that the two men had been losing their eyesight for several years and soon would have been completely blind. The prospect of being blind as well as deaf was unbearable to them, he said.


    "They were fully aware of their decision," Dufour said.

    After winning approval from the necessary authorities, the two men received lethal injections at a Belgian hospital in December.

    Dufour described their last moments: "They had a last cup of coffee and everything was fine. They said goodbye to their parents and brother and all was serene. They waved — and that was that."

    Under a 2002 law, Belgians are allowed to end their own lives if a doctor judges an individual has made his or her wishes clear and is suffering unbearable pain.

    The case of the twins was unusual because the two men were not approaching the end of their natural lives nor were they terminally ill.

    But Jacqueline Herremans, a member of the Belgian Commission of Euthanasia, told RTL that they did meet the legal requirements as their suffering was grave and incurable. When they became blind as well as deaf, he said, they would not have been able to lead autonomous lives, and that with only a sense of touch they had no prospects of a future.

    She acknowledged this was an exceptional case.

    "Evidently they had a particular destiny. They were two human beings who have lived together, grown up together, worked together and wanted to die together. Their suffering may not have been physical, but there was psychological suffering," she said.

    In 2010 and 2011, a total of 2,086 people died by euthanasia in Belgium, according to the country’s Euthanasia Commission.

    Belgium is now looking at introducing a legal amendment that would allow children and those with dementia the option of seeking permission to die. If passed later this year, the option of euthanasia will be extended to minors affected by an incurable illness, or suffering that cannot be alleviated.

    Related stories:

    Netherlands dispatches mobile euthanasia units 

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  • Police investigate shooting of British ExxonMobil executive in Belgium

    Reuters

    British oil executive Nicholas Mockford is seen in an undated photo.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Police in Belgium are investigating the murder of a British oil executive who was shot and killed in front of his wife in Brussels in mid-October.


    Nicholas Mockford, a 59-year-old executive for ExxonMobil, the world’s largest oil company, was shot dead on Oct. 14 as he left a restaurant in Neder-over-Heembeek in northern Brussels. He died on the way to the hospital, police said.

    In the immediate aftermath of Mockford’s murder, a judge imposed an order on police preventing them from releasing any details on the case or their investigation. But on Thursday, authorities decided to enlist the public’s help and released a brief description of the crime.

    Mockford and his wife left the restaurant at about 10 p.m., the report said. They crossed the street toward a car when an assailant approached and hit Mockford’s wife several times in the face and tried to yank her bag away, police said.

    Complete World coverage on NBCNews.com

    A second assailant then fired three shots at Mockford who later died at the scene, police said.

    Authorities were initially investigating the case as a botched carjacking, Reuters reported, but in the days following Mockford’s murder, family members said they believed he may have been the victim of a professional hit by an assassin.

    A police spokesperson said officers were approaching the “difficult investigation” from several angles, after Mockford’s relatives reportedly raised fears that he had been targeted for assassination, the Independent reported.

    “He was shot so calmly and so quickly, it smacks horribly of a professional hit, but we can’t fathom why,” the relative told the Independent. “He isn’t’ the type to cave in to blackmail and it just doesn’t compute.”

    Prosecutors declined to say if they were investigating the case as a possible contract killing and declined to comment further on the details or circumstances of the case until the perpetrators were caught.  

    Mockford was a manager within the chemicals unit at ExxonMobil and had worked over a period of 38 years in Britain, Belgium and Singapore, Reuters reported.

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    Oil giant ExxonMobil said Friday it did not believe the murder, was linked to Mockford’s work.

    “We were shocked by the tragic death of Nick Mockford, one of our employees, a fortnight ago in Burssels,” the Texas-based company said in a statement. “Mr. Mockford was a department manager at our office close to Brussels but we have no indication that the incident was work related.”

    Brussels police said their "difficult" investigation remains open. 

    “We are investigating all different angles, and it depends on how quickly we can find elements of information," Genevieve Seressia, a spokesperson for the Brussels prosecutor's office said. "It’s impossible to predict how long this can take – it might be handled quickly, but could take a long time, even years.” 

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  • Congo wonders: Are the Tintin stories racist?

    Jonny Hogg/Reuters

    A statue of the comic strip character Tintin by Brussels-born author Georges Remi, better known as Herge, is displayed at the workshop of Congolese artist Auguy Kakese in Kinshasa on Sept. 18.

    By Reuters

    KINSHASA, Congo — Any Tintin fan would feel at home in this small wooden shed in a back street of Democratic Republic of Congo's capital Kinshasa, where the shelves are crammed with brightly painted statues from the famous Belgian cartoon character's adventures.

    Friendly faces are everywhere — the tufted-haired Tintin, the bearded Captain Haddock and the bumbling policemen Thomson & Thompson — all lovingly carved from wood and carefully painted in bold colors.


    But with Kinshasa preparing to receive a flood of visitors for an international summit of French-speaking countries next month, some are questioning whether Congo should turn its back on the boy journalist, whose fictional adventures in the then-Belgian colony depicts Africans as dull-witted and childish.

     

    Tintin's relationship with Congo dates back to 1930 when his creator Georges Remi — better-known by his pen name Herge — first wrote "Tintin in the Congo," in which the intrepid reporter and his little white dog Snowy tackle wild animals, hunters, diamond smugglers and warlike local chieftains.

    Tintin statues, which can sell for anything from $15 to $1500, are part of Congo's roaring trade in the comic's memorabilia, business that could receive a boost next month as delegates from 56 countries across the French-speaking world gather in Kinshasa for a summit.

    Brutal colonial past
    Tourists can find stalls and street vendors across the riverside capital selling the figures, and can even buy personalized paintings of the book's front cover, with their names expertly added by the artist.

    But it is Herge's heavily stereotyped depiction of Africans as fat-lipped, childlike savages that makes Tintin a controversial cultural figure for a country trying to turn its back on a brutal colonial past followed by decades of dictatorship and conflict, according to professor Joseph Ibongo Gilungule, the director of Congo's national museum.

    Jonny Hogg/Reuters

    Shelves crammed with figurines from Belgian comic strips Tintin and Le Chat are displayed at the workshop of Congolese artist Auguy Kakese in Kinshasa on Sept. 18.

    "Tintin is an image created by Westerners, and it proves the ignorance of these people, a lack of understanding for our values," Ibongo told Reuters.

    Ibongo wants more people to celebrate the rich cultures of the country's estimated 250 ethnic groups.

    His museum is a celebration of the masks, headdresses and clothing that have played an integral part in Congo's traditional values, but few of the country's 70 million inhabitants come to visit the museum.

    Ibongo is not against preserving relics of Congo's colonial past. He is trying to find money to rehabilitate the statue of controversial British colonial explorer Henry Morton Stanley, which lies forlornly toppled behind a shed at the museum.

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    Nonetheless, with so many people due to visit the country for the International Organisation of La Francophonie summit in October, he believes Congo should find a better poster boy than Tintin.

    "There are other strong images which speak positively of this country, its peoples ... It would be more respectful to Congo and the whole of Africa if we spoke of images that value the Congo, and not Tintin," Ibongo added.

    Tintin has world premiere in Belgian hometown

    Earlier this year a Congolese man studying in Belgium tried and failed to have the book banned on the grounds of racism. Some stores in Britain have banished it to the top shelves, where only adults can see it.

    Even Tintin's creator Herge later re-wrote parts of the story, toning down the more extreme stereotypes which sprang from Belgium's colonization of Congo, which was brutal even by the standards of the day.

    'It's humor'
    Auguy Kakese, an artisan who specializes in Tintin statuettes, acknowledges that it was Europeans who first suggested he carve the figures and most of his clients remain westerners. But he sees no harm in it.

    "It's humor, it's not racist... for those who say it's racist I say that in the comic strip, you never see images which show him trying to kill the Congolese," Kakese said in his workshop, which employs 10 people and produces thousands of Tintin statues.

    Although most of the statues Kakese sells are of the comic's European characters, he does not shy away from depicting the Africans as well, despite them seeming uncomfortably stereotyped for modern tastes.

    "We were a Belgian colony, if we work with Tintin now it's to say that the Belgians are still our brothers," he added.

    5 things you need to know about Tintin

    A recent showing in Kinshasa of the Steven Spielberg-directed Tintin movie attracted a small but varied audience, everyone from Congolese to Koreans.

    Although the audience were aware of the cartoon's sometimes complex relations with Congo, none saw it as a huge problem.

    "I really don't think it is racist, it was just the whites wanting to interpret what they saw in Congo at the time," Congolese Tito Biteketa said.

    Christiana Finotti, an Italian expatriate, said she had bought a Tintin picture for her friend but acknowledged that not all her Congolese colleagues were comfortable with the association.

    "Tintin in the Congo is still a little difficult, due to the style of Belgian colonialism, and due to the history... I think there's been a reconciliation, but the reconciliation hasn't been easy," she said.

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  • US Embassy in Brussels briefly evacuated

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    Updated at 9:23 a.m. ET: The U.S. Embassy in Brussels was evacuated for about an hour Wednesday after two vehicles containing gas bottles were spotted nearby, an embassy spokesman said.

    The spokesman told NBCNews.com that investigations determined there was nothing “nefarious” about the vehicles and staff were allowed to return.

    Earlier, a Belgian Defense Ministry spokesman told Reuters that Belgian bomb disposal experts were investigating the two vehicles.

    "As far as I know there are two suspect vehicles, one close to the American embassy and one close to the Belgian Defense Ministry,'' ministry spokesman Didier De Weerdt said before embassy staff were given the all-clear. "Apparently there are gas bottles inside the vehicles.''

    Reuters contributed to this report. 

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  • Belgians protest against release of child murderer's wife

    Laurent Dubrule / Reuters

    A man protests against the release of Michelle Martin, the ex-wife and accomplice of convicted child murderer Marc Dutroux, in Malonne, a village southeast of Brussels, Belgium, on August 3, 2012.

    Reuters reports — Belgian prosecutors have launched an appeal to block the release from prison of Michelle Martin, the former wife and accomplice of convicted pedophile killer Marc Dutroux.

    Martin, who has been behind bars since 1996, has been cleared for conditional release and on Tuesday a court in the southern city of Mons accepted a plan to house her in a convent in the village of Malonne. The decision angered the families of victims.

    "We pollute Malonne, we stain the memory of these little girls and these other people who died for nothing," said resident Michel Dethier. "This is monstrous."

     

    Julien Warnand / EPA

    A protester embraces her daughter during a demonstration aimed at preventing Michelle Martin moving into the Poor Clare Sisters convent in Malonne, Belgium, on August 3, 2012.

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  • Belgium mourns as bodies of bus crash victims are flown home

    Belgian Defense Department via AP

    Soldiers unload coffins of children and teachers who were killed in a deadly bus crash in Switzerland, at the military airport of Melsbroek, Belgium, on March 16. A coach accident in Switzerland on Wednesday left 28 dead, including 22 children traveling home after a skiing holiday.

    BRUSSELS/SION, Switzerland -- Belgian military aircraft brought home the bodies of 22 children and six adults killed in a bus crash in Switzerland, and the country observed a minute's silence during a national day of mourning on Friday.

    White coffins were loaded into two Hercules transport aircraft near the Swiss town of Sion and landed at a military airport near Brussels from where undertakers collected them after a short ceremony. A third plane returned with their belongings.

    In factories, offices and schools, Belgians stood silent. Buses, trams and some trains also stopped for passengers to pay their respects to the victims, most of them 11 and 12 year olds returning from a school skiing trip.

    "The grief is so intense, but this helps," said one man from the town of Lommel - home to 17 of those killed - referring to acts of remembrance across Belgium.

    Read the full story.

    -- Reuters

    Yves Logghe / AP

    A convoy of hearses leave the military airport of Melsbroek, Belgium, on March 16. A tour bus slammed into a tunnel wall in the Swiss Alps in a horrific accident that killed 22 12-year-old students returning from a joyous ski vacation as well as the six adults who were accompanying them.

    Yorick Jansens / AFP - Getty Images

    Children of primary school 'De Speling' in Lommel form a circle around a heart drawn with chalk on March 16 during a minute of silence at the 't Stekske primary school in Lommel for the victims of the March 13 bus crash near the town of Sierre in southern Switzerland. Twenty-eight people died in the accident, including 22 children from two schools of Lommel and Heverlee, returning to Belgium from a skiing holiday. Belgians observed a minute of silence and church bells tolled across the grieving nation on March 16 as the bodies of the victims were flown home.

     

     

  • Families visit site of deadly bus accident in Switzerland

    Laurent Gillieron / EPA

    Relatives of victims leave the Hotel des Vignes, where the families of victims are staying, the day after a tourist bus from Belgium crashed in a tunnel of the motorway A9, in Uvrier, Switzerland, 15 March 2012. Twenty-eight people, including 22 children, returning to Belgium from a skiing holiday died in a bus accident in Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais, Swiss police said 14 March 2012.

    Olivier Maire / Keystone via AP

    A bus with the relatives of victims leaves the tunnel after they paid tribute at the site of the accident in Sierre, western Switzerland, on March 15. Twenty-eight people, including 22 children, returning to Belgium from a skiing holiday died in a bus accident in Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais, Swiss police said Wednesday.

    Family members of the victims in yesterday's deadly bus crash in a Swiss tunnel, were taken to the scene of the accident that killed 22 schoolchildren and 6 adults. The bus was carrying Belgium students returning from a school ski trip. According to AP, before visiting the site, the relatives were also taken to the morgue to help identify bodies.

    -- Reuters and AP contributed to this report

    Virginia Mayo / AP

    A young girl looks out from behind a fence with tributes attached to it at the 't Stekske school in Lommel, Belgium, on March 15. Belgium is preparing to fly back home the bodies of 22 schoolchildren and six adults who died after a bus bringing them back from a skiing holiday slammed head-on into a tunnel wall in Switzerland. The bus was carrying students from two towns, Lommel, east of Antwerp, and Heverlee, near Leuven.

    Georges Gobet / AFP - Getty Images

    School children lay tributes in front of the St. Lambertius school in Heverlee on March 15, for the victims of the Swiss bus crash. Twenty-eight people were killed when a coach packed with schoolchildren crashed in southern Switzerland as they returned to Belgium from a skiing holiday, Swiss police said.

    Olivier Hoslet / EPA

    Chlidren react as they pay their respect at a memory wall outside the City Hall in Lommel, Belgium, on March 15. Twenty-eight people, including 22 children from two schools in the Belgian cities of Lommel and Heverlee, who were on their way home to Belgium from a skiing holiday, died in a bus accident in Sierre in the Swiss canton of Valais, Swiss police said 14 March 2012.

     

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