The Kurds gathered this Tuesday in the Val d’Oise in Villiers-le-Bel for a funeral ceremony for the three victims killed rue d’Enghien in Paris at the end of December in a racist shooting. A way for the community to pay a last tribute to the three victims while asking France to continue to protect them.
They were several thousand Kurds from France, but also from Belgium or Switzerland to meet in Villiers-le-Bel.
The place chosen, between warehouses, was not chosen at random, because it is easier to secure than an open street, says our special correspondent Pierre Olivier. It is thus necessary to take a narrow alley before arriving in front of the coffins of the three Kurds assassinated on December 23rd.
The three deceased were shot dead in front of the Ahmet-Kaya cultural center on rue d’Enghien in Paris. The shooter, William Malet, was disarmed and arrested immediately. Before the investigators, the 69-year-old man, already known to the courts for acts of violence and who had just come out of pre-trial detention for another case, expressed a ” pathological hatred of strangers » and says he wanted « murder migrants “, According to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
►Also read: Paris calls on Ankara to distinguish the PKK from the Kurdish community
The Kurds do not want to be abandoned
On January 3, the families and loved ones of the victims also made the trip, of course, recalling on a platform in front of the crowd the journey of each of them, their life in France, their projects, but above all their commitment to all a community.
This whole ceremony was very supervised by an important police force, as well as by a service of order set up by the organizers of this commemoration. And this is also one of the messages that we often hear here: the Kurds present are asking the French state not to abandon them. The vast majority of them say that they fled Turkey and came to France to feel and be safe, and with one voice refuse that this will change.
►Also listen: The fears and doubts of the Kurdish community in France after the attack in Paris
It is with great emotion that we invite you to the funeral ceremony of the three activists. #kurds victims of the terrorist attack on the #CDKF on 23 Dec.
RDV on Jan 3, 2023, 12 p.m.
? Palace of Villiers, 12 bis avenue des Entrepreneurs 95400 Villiers le Bel pic.twitter.com/xYpcPuEN6R— Kurdish Democratic Council in France (@Le_CDKF) December 30, 2022