October 2020
In Charleroi Hyle-Mathilde Blakaj has become the youngest goddaughter of queen Mathilde.
As is tradition in Belgium, the seventh daughter in a row has the queen as a godmother - if the family agrees to this of course, and the 7th son in a row has the king as godfather. Nowadays it's rare for this to happen as families have become smaller.
Hyle-Mathilde is part of a twin, but her brother Sadri was born after her. It was the family's gynaecologist who informed them about the tradition. The family wrote to court to ask Mathilde to become godmother, to which she replied yes.
The Blakaj family moved from Kosovo to Belgium in 1998. During a small ceremony at the Charleroi town hall, mayor Paul Magnette handed the family a gift from the queen, an engraved silver cup.
There has been no personal contact between the family and the godmother. A personal meeting with Hyle-Mathilde will take place once she's a teenager.
So far Mathilde has two other goddaughters who are seventh daughters: Zaineb Tebbi from Ghent, and the daughter of a Jewish family who prefer to remain anonymous.
