At least 51 Belgians died while visiting a foreign country during the first month of the summer holidays this year. However, this figure could be even higher as Belgium is not automatically notified about all its citizens' deaths abroad.
Travelling to another country to go on holiday or meet friends or family is usually a joyous occasion, but roughly a dozen travellers get into trouble every day when abroad. Belgians who have left the country and find themselves in difficulty (such as being the victim of an accident or crime, or if they are hit by extreme weather conditions) can contact the FPS Foreign Affairs for help.
At the start of summer, Belgium's Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on citizens to better prepare for their trips by registering their time abroad to ensure that the services are aware of how many Belgians are staying in a particular location.
The Belgian embassies and consulates in said country can then take the necessary action if, for example, a natural disaster occurs. As more people travel abroad during the summer holidays, this period is a busier time for consular assistance. Last month, 129 cases of consular assistance were opened for Belgians in difficulty abroad, figures from the FPS Foreign Affairs published by Sudinfo showed.
51 of these 129 cases were related to Belgians who died abroad in July – down from 68 in July 2022. However, as these Belgian services abroad are not systematically informed of every death of a Belgian in another country, this number could be even higher.
Most calls from Italy and Spain
Last month, the top countries where the most Belgians found themselves in difficulty were Italy and Spain (with an equally high number of calls for assistance). France, Thailand, Croatia, Turkey, Poland, Germany, the United States and Benin also recorded several calls.
Road assistance organisation VAB reported at the end of the month that a sudden storm in northern Italy, which saw hailstones the size of tennis balls destroy tourists' cars, including those of hundreds of Belgians on holiday in the region, resulted in a high number of calls.
One of the major individual disasters that mobilised consular assistance, which has an annual budget of €137,000 to assist Belgians abroad, was the wildfires on the Greek island of Rhodes. The Belgian Foreign Office assisted 70 Belgian tourists and 132 Belgian residents. Dozens of families contacted the services themselves to ask for assistance.
So far this month, the evacuation following the coup in Niger, floods in Slovenia, and the evacuation of 1,250 Belgian scouts from South Korea due to a typhoon, have also added to the services' workload.
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The situation came to a head last week when Ethiopia declared a state of emergency amidst increasing violence between the army and a regional militia. Several Belgians also called for help in the US state of Hawaii, where a series of wildfires broke out, predominantly on the island of Maui, causing widespread damage and killing at least 93 people.
In the case of natural disasters, which are on the rise due to global warming, the Foreign Affairs crisis centre (in close collaboration with the assistance service for Belgians abroad) is called to help and intervene.
