I cannot imagine this Belgian family's bewilderment, but it seems they have been watching this daughter self-destruct for years. Who knew it would end here?
Speaking to the Belgian newspaper La Dernière Heure, Degauque's parents, Jean and Liliane, described the typical growing pains of an adolescent girl. She had a talent, they said "for sticking with the difficult kids" . On one occasion they had to travel 170km to the Ardennes to find her. Of her boyfriends, her mother said: "I don't know how many there were."
But Murielle Degauque's life began to take a more sinister turn when the former bakery assistant met a Belgian of Moroccan extraction, Issam Goris, who took her to Morocco and helped her convert to Islam. It was a liaison which led the 37-year-old daughter of a hospital secretary to travel to Baghdad, strap explosives around her belt and detonate them in an attempt to kill American troops in Iraq. In the event, only Degauque died. But her death has left her family, friends and former neighbours wondering about the past and a nation fearing for the future.
Who can understand her demons, and what "solutions" her new acquaintances promised from Allah? What I find despicable is for men to rig the women they "love" with the tools of death and send them off on a mission.
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