#brusselsattack @BBCBreaking @Independent @PressAssnJa British man missing in #brusselsattack pic.twitter.com/xXVh6lALtp
— Simon Hartley-Jones (@syhartleyjones) 22 March 2016
A man from the North East is missing in the aftermath of the Brussels terror attacks.
David Dixon, who lives in Brussels but is originally from Hartlepool, was travelling to work on Tuesday morning but did not arrive at his office and has not been in contact with his partner since the bombs went off.
It is feared that the IT programmer, will have been travelling to work on the metro system at Maalbeck underground station when the explosions happened.
His partner has being carrying out a “heartbreaking” search of the city’s hospitals in the hope of finding him, her sister has said.
Friends on social media have been appealing for information on his whereabouts and asking anyone with information to contact his partner Charlotte Sutcliffe.
Ms Sutcliffe’s sister, Marie, told BBC Radio 4 programme that Charlotte had been round hospitals in the hope of finding him, while friends were putting out messages on social media asking for anyone who has seen him to contact her.
Marie said: “Understandably she is very, very distressed.
“Not everybody has been identified yet, of the injured, so it’s waiting for that process to happen. Everybody is struggling with communication there, or they were yesterday, with phones being down and there being a lockdown.
“She’s been on social media with friends helping to put out the message that he is still missing. She has been involved with the British consulate.
“It’s just waiting. It’s heartbreaking and very worrying.”
Charlotte, originally from Creswell in Nottinghamshire, has a young son with Mr Dixon, said Marie.
She last spoke to her partner “yesterday morning before he went off to work” and had been unable to get through to his mobile phone since the bombings.
“There’s no phone network. I’ve tried to ring him and other people have,” said Marie, who is due to travel to Brussels to support her sister.
She said family and friends of Mr Dixon were hoping “that she’ll find out from a hospital or through the police that he is safe and being helped”.
Simon Hartley-Jones, who described himself as a “very good friend” of Mr Dixon, said he was missing and asked his followers to retweet the appeal to find him.
He tweeted a photo of Mr Dixon, who wears glasses and has been pictured with short grey hair, captioned: “He was in the metro system, he didn’t arrive to his office and we still haven’t reached him.”
Photos of Mr Dixon, including one of him with a little boy, were also circulated on social media.
His Facebook page shows that he studied economics at Newcastle University and used to work for British Airways.