This is a podcast about some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks in history. In this podcast, I tell the stories of the terrorists, their victims and the consequences for the survivors and society. About people who will sacrifice their own lives or the lives of others for a political, economic, religious or social goal. Who was behind it, who did they want to hit, and why. My name is Natasja, and I am a journalist with a Master's in Middle Eastern Studies. Unfortunately, I have experienced terror in my life several times. The massacre in Utøya in Norway happened half an hour's drive from where some of my immediate family lives. A good friend of mine was only a meter away from one of the suicide bombers on the London Underground in 2005. He miraculously escaped with two burst eardrums. Finally, I worked in Afghanistan some time ago, where a major terrorist attack on a local cafe claimed the lives of 21 people. Among other things, the owner, who had served me a layer cake on my birthday the year before. Fortunately, I have never been in the middle of a terrorist attack myself...
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episode 4: The Christmas massacres in 2008
" They were quick at killing. It did not take them very long, and they said nothing while they were doing it. They killed all 26. I was horrified. I knew all these people. They were my family, my friends, my neighbors. When they finished I slipped away and went to my home, where I sat trembling all over."
It was Christmas Day, 25 December 2008. Christmas the feast of hearts. But right here and now, it was anything but Christmas-like and heart-warming. The place, northern Congo on the central African continent, might also not a place we in the West usually associate with Christmas dinner and Christmas tree. Instead of snow, the temperature was in the 20s degrees celcius, and Christmas trees was replaced by fan palms up to 6-7 meters high.
The 72-year-old man, who had just escaped the brutal massacre described above, was now undergoing treatment at the local hospital shortly after. He was one of the few villagers who escaped what would later be named the 2008 Christmas Massacres during the Christmas days. It was a series of heinous terrorist attacks perpetrated on innocent civilians by an organization that claimed to be fighting in the name of the Christian faith. An organization which, especially during the Christmas days, was supposed to fight for benevolence, but which instead, cunningly, took advantage of the locals being gathered to celebrate the holiday. To kill as many people as possible.
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