In collaboration with the City of Arlon, a transmigrant aid collective offers accommodation to these men who are fleeing their country and who are seeking to reach England at all costs. In general, they are hidden in the woods along the highways, the E411 in particular, waiting for nightfall to hide in a truck. Citizens, pitying the fate and the life led by these unfortunate people, organized themselves to offer them a little food, going so far as to welcome them into their homes.
In Barnich (Arlon), near the Sterpenich border motorway area, the woods were occupied by these migrants, mainly those from two East African countries, Sudan and Eritrea, two rival countries, at the colossal poverty, but also plagued by permanent internal wars. A resident of the small Lorraine village, helped by other villagers and associations, went out of her way to offer them a semblance of more or less correct accommodation. The City of Arlon made the old Barnich school which was abandoned available to them. The one that everyone calls “Mama Nadine” has moved heaven and earth to set up dormitories and relieve these people who sometimes only stay a few days or who settle there for longer periods.
A futile motive, a tragedy narrowly avoided
Mohammed, twenty years old, is from Darfur, a secessionist region in eastern Sudan, a region at war. On March 1, 2024, in the middle of the night, he wanted to smoke a joint inside the building. An Eritrean wants to stop him. The tone rises, a communal fight between Sudanese and Eritreans follows. A member of the Eritrean community wakes up and wants to intervene to intervene. Mohammed takes out a knife and seriously injures him in the chest and face. “Fortunately the wound in the chest was wider than deepnotes Me Dimitri Soblet, the victim’s lawyer, But the intent was clearly lethal.”
The defendant expressed his psychological problems, considering himself autistic. He completely refutes the accusations against him. “The psychiatric expertise did not detect anything abnormal in the defendant’s behavior, but he considers that the risk of reoffending is high, retains the deputy of the king’s prosecutor Loïc Richard . Even though the knife was never found, the injuries speak for themselves. His version is not credible.”
The public prosecutor recalls that the penalty for such acts can be up to eight years in prison. “I will take into account the experience of this young African who had to flee his country, cross the Mediterranean to arrive in Belgium 3 years ago, where he never had a problem. I demand 4 years in prison without me oppose a simple partial suspension.”
The Sudanese’s lawyer, Me Audrey Lissoir, recalled the context in which the transmigrants fled their country at the risk of their lives and the post-traumatic syndrome with which they must live. She believes that the evidence of her client’s guilt does not exist. “The cultural and religious differences between Sudanese and Eritreans are very complicated to live with”, says the lawyer. She calls for his acquittal, because her place is not in prison. In the alternative, she requests a simple reprieve for what goes beyond preventive detention. Judgment on June 24.
