She was just 15 and her friends couldn’t save her from the rising waters. For her family and everyone in this flooded region of Belgium, nothing will ever be the same again
It was not a river. It was scarcely a stream. The Ruisseau des Quartes, Marcourt, Belgium. An unlovely and unremarkable tributary of the Ourthe, itself a tributary of the mighty Meuse, which thunders from France through Belgium and the Netherlands and on to the chilly oblivion of the North Sea. It was barely 2 metres wide, boggy in places, just 5cm deep in others. The parents dropping off their children at the United World Colleges summer camp on 10 July 2021 hopped over it as they lugged bags to the dormitories.
Fourteen-year-old Benjamin Van Bunderen Robberechts was nervous on the drive down. He would have to take a Covid test on arrival and he worried it would be positive. Belgium was beginning to relax restrictions and Benjamin was desperate to socialise with other teenagers. But the test was negative; soon, Benjamin was dropping off his things in his dorm and meeting his other campmates. And there was Rosa.
