A year after her daughter’s murder in Marseille, Layla is inconsolable

On September 10, 2023, Socayna, 24, was hit by a stray bullet in the apartment where she lived with her mother in the 10th arrondissement of Marseille. Nearly a year after this tragedy, the pain is still unbearable for her mother, Layla.

Since the death of her eldest daughter, 24, Layla, who works with disabled children in schools, has been playing the story of that evening over and over again. “She went into her room, we heard gunshots and that’s where I saw my daughter, on the floor and blood was flowing everywhere. They took my darling away from me.” Layla has since moved away. Nothing can ease her pain and she has a cruel list of unanswered questions about what led to this terrible tragedy.

On September 10, 2023, at around 11 p.m., a stray bullet went through the plywood below Socayna’s bedroom window in their apartment in the Saint-Thys neighborhood. Brain dead, she died two days later at the hospital where she had been taken.

Socayna has become the symbol of the violent war around drug trafficking in Marseille. Homicides linked to drug banditry that justice now calls “narco-homicides”. Among the 49 in Marseille in 2023, four are collateral victims, including Socayna.

Between sobs, Layla tells how she is eaten away every day by an unspeakable pain. “Since my daughter died, I spend my days crying. People have moved on with their lives, but I am dead alive.”

“I worked 24 years so that my daughter could succeed in her studies and it all went away with a weapon of war.”

Layla, Socayna’s mother

to franceinfo

Months later, Layla is still waiting for justice for the murder and not having answers adds to her helplessness. “It’s a double punishment, I didn’t understand why my daughter left, she said. We’re on the waiting list, what should we look for in Socayna’s file? She wasn’t in a place where she shouldn’t be. She wasn’t outside. She was in her room.”

Socayna’s alleged murderer is 16 years old and has been charged with murder and placed in pre-trial detention. “He must be punished, Layla is indignant. He didn’t mean to kill my daughter, but he went in to kill and she was the one who took the bullet. It was his choice, to become a criminal.”