Shanti de Corte was 17 years old and miraculously survived the terrorist attack in the Belgian metro. But she has never healed her post-traumatic syndrome and her psychic pain was considered incurable by a college of doctors.
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It will be necessary to add your name to the list of 32 victims of the Islamist attacks committed, in 2016, in Brussels, at the Maelbeek metro and at Zaventem airport. The student was in this last place, awaiting an airplane for Rome on March 22. A few meters from one of the two suicide bombers that exploded high power bombs. Miraculously, Shanti de Corte, 17 at the time, was not injured but she never recovered from her post-traumatic syndrome. The young woman, constantly plunged into great suffering and supported by her family and friends, decided to claim euthanasia in April. This was practiced on May 7, but only revealed a few days ago.
The psychic pain of Shanti de Corte was deemed unbearable and incurable by a college of doctors and psychiatrists, which made the act possible in the eyes of Belgian law. An investigation opened by the Antwerp prosecutor’s office concluded that the rules had been respected. On Facebook, the young Flemish left an epitaph evoking her “departure in peace” and concluded by these words: “Know that I already miss”.
We will therefore not hear the testimony of Shanti de Corte at the trial of the alleged authors of the double attack in Brussels – and she had neither the desire nor the courage to come there – while the hearings will finally start on November 14. Initially set for October 10, they had to be postponed because of, among other things, a controversy over the conditions of appearance of the ten accused. After a bronca of the defense lawyers, the president of the Assize Court had ordered the dismantling of individual, closed and glazed boxes, in which Salah Abdeslam and his storage.
“A ghost who no longer feels “
The accused will face the testimonies of some 370 people who tried to overcome the shock of the attacks. Shanti de Corte, a student in orthopedics, did not arrive there despite the support of the members of her circle, five friends, her parents. She told them her sleepless nights, her panic attacks at the sound of an ambulance in the street, her depression. Described as fragile before the attacks, his condition has continued to worsen over stays in psychiatric units, antidepressants and suicide attempt. Testifying in the press, she wanted, for a moment, to appear as an example of the possible resilience of the victims but she did not succeed, describing herself as “a ghost which no longer feels anything”.
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