Nice attack trial: "I looked the terrorist straight in the eye"
Broadcast room of the trial, which is being held in Paris, for civil parties and lawyers in Nice, in the south of France, on September 1, 2022. AFP - VALERY HACHE
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
At the trial of the Nice attack, the hearings of civil parties resumed.
This Tuesday, October 11, the court notably heard Kimberley, who was 16 on July 14, 2016. The young woman, during her poignant testimony, plunged the room into the abyss of the psychological trauma she has endured for six years.
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With our special correspondent,
Laura Martel
“
Nothing obliges you to testify
”, underlines the president, seeing the frail Kimberley collapsing as soon as she arrives at the bar.
But the young woman is determined, despite the sobs, to tell what she has long kept silent.
That night was the first time she was allowed out at night.
Happiness, she says, then “
the horror that begins
”.
Screams, bodies fluttering.
Me, I was paralyzed.
I looked the terrorist straight in the eye hoping he had a tilt to stop him, but nothing.
It is to an anonymous person who pushed her that Kimberley owes her life.
But for her, “
the horror continues
”.
My mother bathed me, made me eat like a baby, I got up to vomit, I had nightmares, hallucinations, I saw blood on my mother, on me, everywhere.
I started the mutilations in secret.
Kimberley falls below 30 kilos, multiplies suicide attempts … Especially since she is, in addition, the victim of harassment on Facebook.
They said I was a filthy anorexic liar who deserved to die.
My parents learn it today like you, but why tell them?
They already suffer enough because of me.
For Kimberley's guilt and anger run as deep as her despair.
From “
hospitalization to hospitalization
,” she says, “
I spent my 17 years in the hospital, my 18 years in the hospital.
I told myself that I was not normal, I was angry with my parents for having given birth to me.
»
Attending the trial, however, Kimberley decided, for the first time in six years, to see a psychologist.
“
I will never get better if they don't help me.
“
Every birthday,
she confides,
I make a wish to die, so that the pain stops.
»
►Read again: Trial of the Nice attack: former President François Hollande at the helm
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