Anneli Kruusberg came from Tallinn, Estonia, to speak about her son Rickard, Olena and Mykola Bazelevsky from Odesa, Ukraine to pay tribute to her son, Mykhaylo. Two boys who died aged just 21 and 22 respectively on July 14, 2016, on the Promenade des Anglais, far from their families. For her part, Sanchia Lambert, 44, “hesitated a lot, because she and her companion, John, having dodged the truck, got away “without the slightest scratch,” but she finally made the trip from Stockholm, Sweden, to come and tell of her “invisible scars.” Adelaide Stratton, 28, whose grave injuries required cosmetic surgery, insisted on flying 16,000 kilometers from Sydney, Australia, together with her older sister Jemima and her parents Chantelle and David, to testify before the Paris Special Criminal Court.
The fourth week of the trial of the Nice attack, from Tuesday 27 to Friday 30 September, highlighted one of the particularities of this case with regard to the victims: the international dimension. Of the 86 dead on the Promenade des Anglais, 33 were foreign nationals of 10 different nationalities, many of them tourists or exchange students. They made up more than a third of the victims, a higher proportion than in the November 13 attacks. A web radio allowing the civil parties to follow the hearing from a distance was broadcast abroad with an English translation service, which had not been the case during the November 13 attacks trial.
These foreign victims, whether direct or indirect, all gave unusually lengthy testimony on the stand – sometimes lasting too long for presiding judge Laurent Raviot – as if they were determined to show they had not crossed Europe or the planet for nothing. The time spent translating by interpreters who were not always up to speed certainly lengthened the statements, but it was above all because they had special things to say. “As international victims, we have a unique trauma,” summarized Jemima Stratton, Adelaide’s sister.
Numerous administrative meanders
Coming from elsewhere does not exempt one from the usual consequences of an attack. Like many civilians, Adelaide Stratton said she is now hypervigilant and looks for an escape route wherever she goes. Sanchia Lambert said she had experienced survivor’s guilt and panic attacks. Relatives of deceased victims will remain haunted by the sight of a damaged body seen in the morgue. Post-traumatic stress, depression and grief know no boundaries and can be expressed in any language.
But for these victims and their loved ones, everything has been complicated by distance, language barriers and bureaucracy. “I would like to make it clear to this court that my trauma stems as much from the attack itself as from my status as an international victim,” said Adelaide, who lived through long dark hours at the Pasteur Hospital in Nice. “I didn’t speak French, I was completely isolated and alone.” Her parents, after hours of anguish on the other side of the world, not knowing where their daughter was, or even if she was alive, after hours of trying to reach her by all means, including through the Australian Foreign Office, finally managed to contact the hospital. “We were told that she had survived and was injured,” explained her mother, Chantelle, “It sounded very serious, but because of the language barrier, we didn’t understand exactly what was wrong with her.”
You have 50.93% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.
Read the full article here