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Brussels Exchange Student Living In Arkansas Reacts To Attacks

VILONIA (KFSM) — A teenager from Brussels is living in Arkansas for an exchange program, away from his family and friends while devastation hits his count...

VILONIA (KFSM) -- A teenager from Brussels is living in Arkansas for an exchange program, away from his family and friends while devastation hits his country.

Eighteen-year-old Loic De Moor woke up Tuesday (March 22) to learn his country was under attack, and spent the day watching the news in English and French to keep up with the details.

“This morning I really wanted to be in Brussels with my family,” De Moor said.

He quickly learned from his sister that his family is okay. After reaching out to his friends by texting them and looking them up on Facebook, he learned they are all safe, too.

But it's what others are dealing with in his hometown of Brussels that he said is difficult to deal with.

“I was scared and a little bit angry, and after that I was frustrated; there was frustration, because we can't do anything about it,” he said.

“I know how I felt when 9/11 happened, and some of these other attacks happened, I was angry. I was angry. And if I was him I’d be angry right now,” Brian Lawrence, De Moor’s exchange father in Vilonia, said.

De Moor has been in Arkansas for the last eight months, and together they've found a way to talk about what happened and decompress.

"I pulled up a map and said, ‘okay here's where this is, show me exactly where your house is at, how far,’” Lawrence said. “I think he's probably between five and 10 kilometers between where he lives and where the subway station was."

De Moor said he uses that subway station frequently when he’s at home.

“It could [have been] me in the subway this morning,” De Moor said.

While the teenager said he doesn't want to live in fear, he said he will be more aware of what can happen,  and return to Brussels expecting things to be different.

“It can happen everywhere,” he said. “It just happened in Brussels today.”

He will leave the United States and return to his family in July.

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