Mutombo posted two messages and photos on his Facebook page, saying, “I am safe here” and “I am fine.”
God is good. I am in Brussels Airport with this craziness. I am fine.
Thank you everyone. I am safe here. God is good.
His charitable foundation also posted a message on Facebook, saying that the former NBA star “was thankfully unharmed.”
Multiple explosions rocked the Zaventem international airport and the Brussels subway system, killing at least 31 people. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks, saying in a posting from the group’s Amaq news agency that its extremists opened fire in the airport and “several of them” detonated suicide belts.
Mutombo, 49, was an eight-time All-Star during his 19-year NBA career and was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame last year.
He was in Brussels waiting for a connecting flight to the United States after visiting one of his foundation’s hospitals in his native Congo.
“I was in lounge and next time I heard people start screaming and everyone start running,” he told CNN. “Because I was napping, and I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ I thought it was such a joke.
A lady was like, ‘Everybody out. Everybody out. We have to go, we have to go. A lot of people are bleeding downstairs and a lot of people are hurt.’
“And there was no hesitation from there. I brought my bag and I start running.”
Mutombo told CNN that he ran through the terminal and toward the tarmac.
“I just feel bad for the family of the loved ones that lost their lives,” he said. “Feel bad for all the mom and all the citizen that was there that couldn’t run and that couldn’t move. It was very crazy; I feel very bad. So many mom were trying to push their two kids and three kids. You have one thousand people and everyone running. It was very, very sad.”