‘Wound of the soul’: Victims recount horrors at Paris attacks trial

PARIS: Over the past month, hundreds of survivors and relatives of victims of the November 2015 Paris attacks have recounted their ordeal in harrowing detail at a historic trial held over the atrocities.

The biggest trial in modern French history went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that those caught up in the Islamic State attacks, which left 130 people dead and over 350 injured, could tell their stories.

Over 300 people were called to the stand to testify about the mass shootings and suicide bombings that targeted young people enjoying a Friday night out in the French capital.

“I hope that this trial paves the way for our personal and collective recovery,” said Ali, the father of a Universal Music executive killed in the first burst of gunfire at the Bataclan theatre, where 90 concertgoers died.

As the focus shifts to the defendants, including the sole surviving member of the IS cell that targeted Paris, AFP looks back on some of the most compelling witness accounts.

A ‘broken’ face

Medics who treated the wounded at the Bataclan and nearby bars and cafes described injuries similar to those seen in war zones.

One of the survivors of the siege at the Bataclan, which lasted more than two hours, said doctors had described her face as “broken” — using a French expression for soldiers who were disfigured during World War 1.

Gaelle, 40, said she had been operated on 40 times for horrific injuries after a bullet tore through her face, leaving her with a cheek “dangling by my neck” and a mouthful of broken teeth which she swallowed “because they made me cough and I was afraid of drawing the terrorists’ attention”.

Her dreams for the future, she said, included “being able to drink a coffee without it dribbling down my chin and to kiss someone without them being turned off” by her appearance.

An ‘Everest of bodies’

Several survivors of the Bataclan shootings described playing dead while three gunmen roamed the theatre, firing on people who moved or moaned in pain after several bursts of automatic gunfire.

“They were shooting at us like rabbits,” said Cedric, a 41-year-old former delivery driver, describing how he tried to “melt into the floor”.

Virginie described joining the “undulating wave” of people trying to crawl towards an emergency exit in the concert hall, where 90 people were killed, and scaling “an Everest of bodies” piled up in front of the door before making it to safety.

The officer in charge of counting the dead after police stormed the theatre and ended the attack described horrific scenes of “bodies, bodies, bodies” and an eerie silence permeated only by the ringing of mobile phones as relatives and friends frantically attempted to join their loved ones.

Empty plate at the table

Some of the victims’ families gave wrenching accounts of trying to locate their loved ones in the chaotic aftermath of the attacks and then coming to terms with their loss.

Aurelie, who was expecting a second child with her partner Matthieu when he was killed at the Bataclan, described “unthinkingly” setting three places at the dinner table and then hiding her tears from their three-year-old son when she had to take the third plate away.

“I nearly smashed all the plates in order to leave two,” Aurelie, who gave birth to a girl four months after the attack, told the court.

Rony, the grandfather of the youngest victim of the attacks, 17-year-old Lola Ouzounian, said the death of the bright teen who was “innocence incarnated” was a “wound of the soul that will never heal”.

‘Not my Islam’

Several victims expressed anger over the killing of innocent civilians and the callous manner in which the gunmen at the Bataclan executed some of their victims at point-blank range.

Ali, the Algerian-born Muslim father of the slain Universal Music executive Thomas, who requested that this actual name was not disclosed, said the killers’ claim to be defending Islam made him “nauseous”.

“The Islam they’re pushing is not my Islam, nor that of my parents, my neighbours or the 1.5 billion Muslims in the world,” he told the court, dismissing the jihadists as “a gang of crooks”.

Virginie said she was convinced that the attackers who had grown up in France had “more in common with a feminist atheist like me” than with the Syrians whose deaths in French air strikes against IS they claimed to be avenging.

“We’re not at war with you, you’re at war with yourselves,” Zoe Alexander, sister of the only Briton killed in the attacks, Nick Alexander, declared.