Oceane Theard edited by Wassila Belhacine 06:24, May 08, 2022
This Sunday, May 8 marks the 20th anniversary of the Karachi attack in Pakistan.
On May 8, 2002, fifteen people including eleven workers from the naval construction department died in the explosion of the bus which was taking them to their place of work.
Decades later, the memory of the tragedy is still intact for the survivors.
"It's indelible...", breathes Gilles Sanson.
"It's part of me," continues the retiree.
The memories of this former worker are almost intact.
The trip this morning of May 8, 2002 to Karachi in Pakistan, "always at the same time, always by the same route".
A military bus picks him up, with colleagues, then they head to the Sheraton hotel.
"The colleagues went to the bus, and a car parked right next to it. A car filled with explosive charges. And there, the bus was pulverized", says Gilles.
The dramatic images seem to scroll through his mind, he who did not lose consciousness during the attack.
The back of the bus shattered, and the impression that his head was going to explode with the blast of the explosion.
Then the pain in his legs, his feet doubling in size.
"You are in a total void, death is around you. I had to leave this bus by crawling, also freeing myself from the bodies of certain victims. Afterwards I went to settle at the foot of the crater which had been formed by the explosion", describes Gilles Sanson.
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"Today I walk but I drag myself"
A scene of war, a violence that still lives in his mind, and in that of other survivors like Michel Bongert.
He was in the third row on the bus.
"At the start you don't feel anything. I touch my top, my head I had a bleeding ear. And there you go down, I arrive on my feet and I see two footballs. And that's when you you are in pain." Michel has some crushed feet, he spent three years in a wheelchair. "Today I walk but I drag myself.
Learn to walk again, to live with the memory, but without explanation.
Today we do not know exactly what the causes of this attack are, many gray areas remain in the Karachi file.
Few answers, and this, “regardless of the governments which marched”, explains Gilles Sanson in a voice tinged with anger.
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"May 8, 2002 me, in the bus I died"
Michel Bongert is more resigned to him.
"I died on May 8, 2002 on the bus. And will we ever really have the truth, that I don't believe too much in it, it's been a long time, it's already been 20 years.", confides he on Europe 1. He will go to the ceremonies of homage organized in Cherbourg on Sunday May 8, to bring to life the memory, the memory of the disappeared of Karachi.
Gilles Sanson decided to boycott the official ceremonies and pay tribute "alone" by placing a rose in front of the stele dedicated to the victims of the attack.