“I wish to die on every birthday so that my pain finally stops,” Kimberley, who was 16 at the time of the attack, revealed on Tuesday at the Nice bombing trial.
This survivor gave a heartbreaking testimony, revealing invisible wounds and evoking the nightmares and hallucinations that persist, including “in the middle of the street”.
Hundreds of witnesses to the attack suffered a more or less significant traumatic shock.
More than 150 suffering children are still followed at the Lenval hospital.
Kimberley was 16 at the time of the attack.
When the ram-truck sped into the crowd massed on the Promenade des Anglais on July 14, 2016. Like a little girl, whose words were read on Tuesday at the trial of the Nice attack, this survivor delivered a heartbreaking testimony, revealing invisible wounds.
"I wish to die on every birthday so my pain would finally end," she said.
His suffering at the bar is painful to bear.
“Nothing obliges you to testify”, said to him in a soft voice the president of the special assize court of Paris, Laurent Raviot.
Courageous, she continues.
The evening of July 14 was his “first authorized night outing”.
An immense joy before seeing “bodies flying in the air”.
“I saw bodies all over the house”
“You know the phrase they say, “I saw my life pass before my eyes”, well I saw myself as a baby, a child and a teenager.
I looked this terrorist straight in the eye, hoping that he would see me cry and that he would have a feeling that he had to stop, but no, nothing…”, she recalls.
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel's mad dash on the Nice seaside will kill 86 people and injure more than 450.
Kimberley is safe.
But his wounds are invisible.
She is no longer capable of anything.
At home, “it was my mum who washed me, brushed my teeth, made me eat as if I were a baby,” she says.
Every night, they are nightmares.
"I saw bodies all over the house, blood on me, blood everywhere," she said, her voice cracking.
Hallucinations persist, including “in the middle of the street”.
"My dark thoughts are constantly present"
“I started the mutilations in secret because I had no reason to continue living (…) The more the days passed, the more I felt this need to die.
His life is now spent in the hospital.
She's just skin and bones.
“I started to blame myself and my parents.
Why was I born?
Why didn't I die instead of everyone?
“, she continues.
On the bench of the civil parties, his father collapses.
“Am I happy today?
No.
Nothing has changed, I still cry so much, my dark thoughts are constantly present.
[…] Now I smile, I show that I'm fine even if I'm not.
»
Among the 86 people killed in the Nice attack, fifteen are minors.
Hundreds of others have suffered more or less severe traumatic shock.
More than 150 suffering children are still followed at the Lenval hospital.
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