Briton who Told his Family he was Safe among the Brussels Dead

A British computer programmer who had just messaged his family to say he was safe; Dutch siblings phoning a relative just as the bombs went off: harrowing stories continue to emerge of the 31 killed in the Brussels attacks.

Reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of Brussels, the symbolic capital of Europe, victims came from as far afield as Peru, China and the United States, as well as neighboring France and the Netherlands.

Briton David Dixon, 51, texted his aunt to reassure her he was safe after the airport blasts but happened to be on the metro system when a suicide bomber blew himself up, British media said.

His family issued a statement calling the news "terrible and devastating".

The British Foreign Office confirmed Dixon's death and said seven other Britons were injured, three of whom were still in hospital.

Dutch siblings Alexander and Sascha Pinczowski, both 21, who lived in New York, were reportedly on the phone to relatives when the airport bomb went off, cutting off the line.

"It's awful that these people were killed by a random act of terror," Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said.

The Netherlands lost at least one other citizen in the attacks, named by Dutch media as Elita Weah, 41, who was traveling to her stepfather's funeral in the U.S.

Forensic experts continued the grisly task of identifying the remains. But the process is painstakingly slow, complicated by the violence of the explosions and because many of the victims were foreigners.

Some 30 specialists, including the seven permanent Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team experts, are working to identify the bodies or remains of victims recovered from the attack scenes.

A Facebook page where worried relatives, friends and colleagues can post notices of the missing has been set up. Pictures already uploaded show men and women, young and old, from Belgium and across the globe.

Adelma Marina Tapia Ruiz, a 37-year-old Peruvian woman who lived in Belgium, was killed in the airport blasts, the foreign ministry in Lima confirmed on Wednesday.

Her husband and twin daughters had a miraculously lucky escape as he ran off after them as they played.

Another victim was Belgian civil servant Olivier Delespesse, according to his employer.

He was killed in the metro attack, local media reported Wednesday, along with 20-year-old Belgian law student Leopold Hecht, who was named by his university.

The family of 21-year-old Bart Migom, who was traveling to see his American girlfriend, had declared him missing, and the Belgian college where he was a student on Friday said he was one of the victims.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Friday that a number of Americans died in the blasts, claimed by the Islamic State group.

Kerry did not give a figure but a U.S. official separately said two U.S. citizens had been confirmed dead.

France's foreign ministry said a Frenchman had died in the attacks and 12 other citizens were injured, three of them seriously.

A Chinese national was also among those killed, the Chinese embassy in Belgium confirmed Friday.

In all, around 40 nationalities are thought to be among the dead and wounded although only four have been officially identified and named.