The photo of Hadja, 42, the eldest of the siblings appears in sepia on the screen behind the judges in the courtroom, Wednesday September 28. Faced with this image: his two sisters, Seloua and Sabra. They came to testify, hand in hand. They begin to tell the evening of July 14, and the disappearance of their great sister, that everyone is looking for for long days. The family has to wait and learns four days later that she was killed by the truck.
It is therefore a broken family that emerges from the attack. Quickly, there are reproaches: why was she alone? Why was Seloua further away in Nice? Why didn’t Sabra give more news to some relatives in Algeria during all these days of research? Reproaches that add to the pain and make everything burst. Both sisters describe at the bar the Eid celebrations, the family celebrations that we no longer dare to wish for each other. Seloua has spoken a lot to tell in recent years in the media, she is also very involved in an association.
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The reproaches and the pain that made everything burst for the big siblings. The two sisters describe at the helm the Eid celebrations and the family celebrations that we no longer dare to wish for each other. Seloua has told all this a lot lately in the media. She is very involved in an association. His sister Sabra, did it much less: “It was a deliverance for me“, she said, relieved, after testifying at the bar.
“It’s a duty to remember, so as not to forget. It will go down in history and we must not forget, it must not start again.”
Seloua, she wanted to show that her family was reunited, six years after the tragedy. “We were a united family and I hope that the other members of my family listened to me, that they understand that it is for them too, for our family, that we support each other. This was also the symbol of intervening in pairs, to give meaning to this horror.“, she explains. Sabra and Seloua also recount the devastation of their big sister’s four children. Inès, for example, was 9 years old, she was on the walk with her mother. She walled in her world, and now lives in a utopia. The two aunts add that Inès’ two older brothers carry within them a violence that is difficult to manage.
That evening, dozens of children and teenagers are present and traumatized by the scene. Two families testified to the bar on Wednesday. First, a tall boy, 22 years old today, 16 years old in 2016. He describes, with a jerky voice and a handkerchief in hand, the terror of having seen the truck pass a few millimeters from him this evening -the. He then explains the depressions, “I was no longer going to school, because there were mockeries, comrades who did not believe me“, he says. “I was no longer going to school, I was going to see the doctors“, he continues. His parents and his brother are present to accompany him, behind him. They too have been telling their story of hell for six years.
Then Houria Bouzelif takes the stand. Single mother of Ilian, who was 10 on July 14, 2016, he is 17 today. She tells how, on returning home to Corsica, after the attack, her son began to have fits, nightmares. The return to college was also very difficult. “He slept in class, at the back of the class. He fell asleep on his own because he didn’t sleep at night. He was wetting the bed, in the middle of the night, so we get up, we wash“, she says, still tested. Houria also returns to “daily difficulties“, “aggressiveness“of his son, who”was really angry“.
“We are of the Muslim faith, and the question he asks himself immediately after the attacks is: Mom, is it normal for a Muslim to kill a Muslim? That was his first concern.”
Houria, mother of Ilianat franceinfo
Houria still recounts the insults of his comrades. Around this time, Ilyan was almost expelled from college. His mother then seeks psychological support, but he has to wait a year and a half in Ajaccio. She ends up taking three jobs, nurse’s aide, paramedic, security guard at night, to be able to pay for sessions therapeutic sports, dancing, boxing to his son.
Today, before the specially composed Assize Court, the boy is there, at 17, behind his mother. He takes her by the arms when she cracks at the bar. He also told the court:that night, I thought it was the end of the world“. That was all his nightmares. Today, at 17, he is preparing for his baccalaureate.