20 years later, the memories are still vivid for the victims. “Everything got confused, it exploded,” remembers Laurent Leveziel, formerly of the Naval Construction Department (DCN), now Naval Group, responsible for testing submarines built in Pakistan. “When I regain consciousness,” he continues, “I hear people screaming, I can’t see, I can’t move.” And for good reason, in the explosion, Laurent Leveziel had his legs seriously damaged. He will then undergo multiple operations and spend five years in a wheelchair. Michel Bongert, also a former member of the DCN, was also seriously injured. The events happened very quickly, he remembers above all that that day, everyone was happy to go to work because May 8 was a public holiday and they were going “earn more, for retirement or for pay”. The explosion of the bus taking them to work claimed the lives of 14 people. Eleven worked for the DCN of Cherbourg.
“Even after 20 years, it’s not easy”
After surgical operations, rehabilitation is a whole daily life that needs to be readjusted. “We came back to life little by little,” says Laurent Leveziel. Getting back to life also means getting back to work. The DCN has adapted the station for the injured. “I used to sail with boats so there was no longer any question of me going down in submarines,” he explains. “Afterwards you have to live with that,” says Michel Bongert, “and even after 20 years, it’s not easy.” Returning to work after three years off was the hardest thing for him. It also took accept that he was no longer the same person after the attack : “I died on May 8, 2002. We can’t escape unscathed.”
It is also necessary to digest the events. Two decades after the facts, the case with multiple legal aspects is still incomplete. The exact causes of the Karachi attack are not known.. To continue to move forward, it is necessary to overcome this unknown for Michel Bongert: “I don’t know if we will one day be able to find the ‘who?’, ‘why?’ of the family, it would be unlivable.”
Relive without forgetting
If they managed to get on with their lives, the two survivors maintain the memory of their colleagues who died on May 8, 2002. Laurent Leveziel regularly has memories that come back to him. “Often at night, I dream of my friends,” says the pensioner, “little parties, tennis tournaments we used to do, and then other nights, we’re all on the bus.” Michel Bongert got involved in a veterans’ association, his way of pursuing this memory and being active. “I was lucky enough to come back alive when my friends died there. So I have no right to complain. You have to go. You have to live,” believes Laurent Leveziel.
Both will be at the commemorations this Sunday, May 8, 2022, for this memory of their comrades, 20 years after the attack which shook the city of Cherbourg.