“In fact, we no longer live, we survive. The wounds are still there”, explains Sylvie. This lady returned from vacation on March 22, 2016 when the two bombs exploded, one after the other. “I said to myself that it was my time, this is the last time that I see my children, that I will have lived”.
That same morning, Abdallah, porter, started work at 6:30 a.m. “When I heard the second bomb, I said to myself that we were going to die. I thought that if there had been two, there would have been a third, then a fourth…”
They see their own deaths, and those of others. These images are etched in their brains. “The first few days, we try to live as if nothing had happened, but everything comes back very quickly”, explains Sylvie.
“These are nightmares, anxiety attacks. Sometimes I see people with bags and I’m scared,” says Abdallah. “I can no longer go into places where there are no windows, I need a place to escape”.
Fear, he tries to make it go away with drugs. You also have to fight against this feeling of guilt for still being alive, unscathed. “Sometimes I wonder why I didn’t die, I could have left my family alone”.
Abdallah wants to move forward… but not to the trial. “I don’t want to be there, to hear what they are going to say, and to hear the testimonies”.
Sylvie wants to go “because it’s our trial”.