SPAIN: Spaniards attend a 10th anniversary ceremony at the Atocha train station, where one of four bombs exploded on March 11, 2004. A total of 191 people died in the four attacks and over 1800 were injured

Record ID: 858157

  • Title: SPAIN: Spaniards attend a 10th anniversary ceremony at the Atocha train station, where one of four bombs exploded on March 11, 2004. A total of 191 people died in the four attacks and over 1800 were injured
  • Date: 11th March 2014
  • Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) REPRESENTATIVE OF MARCH 11 VICTIMS GROUP AND MOTHER OF DANIEL PAZ MANJON, STUDENT WHO WAS KILLED AGED 20 AT EL POZO TRAIN STATION BOMBING, PILAR MANJON, SAYING: "I hope you understand what it means to get up every day after such a vital loss. To go to bed each day after such a vital loss. The enormous effort that it takes to explain the unexplainable. We need their spirit to continue walking."
  • Embargoed: 26th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • City:
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVAC51AVQH624FC3YYT7FEB7LY29
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  • Story Text: Spaniards held a 10th anniversary memorial service at the Atocha train service on Tuesday (March 11) to pay tribute to the victims of Europe's worst Islamist militant attack on March 11, 2004 when a series of explosions ripped through four commuter trains in Madrid.
    One hundred and ninety one people died when 10 backpacks filled with explosives and activated with mobile phone detonated on four packed commuter trains between 07:37 and 07:40am.
    The explosions left tracks strewn with bodies and injured 1,857 people.
    The first exploded at Atocha station between 7:37 and 7:38am killing 34 people, subsequent explosions took place at 07:39 at Calle Tellez (63 dead) and at Santa Eugenia Station (14 dead). The last of the explosions took place at El Pozo station where 65 were killed. Fifteen others died in hospital over the following days.
    Amparo Imedio Salinero lost her son, Francisco Javier Barahona, in the Atocha bombing.
    She said she still has questions about why her son's life was taken at only 34.

    "We've been left behind without them. It was a very unjust bombing, very-- everything. We don't know why it happened. We don't know what ideas they had. It's a very gratuitous idea to hurt. They snatched their lives from them and they destroyed us forever," she said.
    Isabel Rodriguez said the bombings scarred the entire city and that it was important to remember the deaths.

    "It was a very hard blow to the people of Madrid and, as such, we reflect that in the demonstrations taking place. And I think that remembering it year after year is to make sure a bit that the barbarism that took place that March 11th not be reproduced," she said.
    Pilar Manjon heads the March 11 victims association. Her 20-year-old son, Daniel Paz Manjon, was a student who died at the El Pozo train station bombing.
    She said that, 10 years on, it still hurts to wake up every morning.

    "I hope you understand what it means to get up every day after such a vital loss. To go to bed each day after such a vital loss. The enormous effort that it takes to explain the unexplainable. We need their spirit to continue walking," she said.
    In 2007, a Spanish court found 21 people guilty of involvement in the train bombings but cleared three men of masterminding the attacks.
    Aside from the memorial at the Atocha train station, a mass was held at the Almudena Cathedral and other tributes are scheduled across the Spanish capital.
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