Victims’ stories reveal depth of tragedy for city

Thomas Ayad (32)

Ayad, a product manager for Universal Music

France

, was chatting to a friend at the Eagles of Death Metal concert at the Bataclan when three men walked through the front door and started to spray the hall with gunfire. He died almost immediately.

Originally from Amiens in the north of France, Ayad was the sort of person everyone liked, according to his friends: loyal, open, honest and funny. He had risen quickly through the ranks at the music label, looking after everyone from Metallica to Justin Bieber.

Colleagues said he also had an impressive guitar collection and a big interest in sport.

"He was a good guy," a friend told Le Monde. "That's often said about people who die, but in this case it's true."

Ayad was about to buy a house with his partner.

"This is an unspeakably appalling tragedy. I cannot even begin to express the depth of my sorrow," Lucian Grainge, chair of the Universal Music Group, wrote to staff to confirm the news of Ayad's death.

“On behalf of everyone here at UMG, we extend our most profound sympathies to his parents and all of his friends and family.”

Elsa Delplace (35)

Delplace, a French citizen, had gone to the Bataclan on Friday night with her five-year-old son and her mother, Patricia San Martin (61). Of the three family members, only the young boy survived. Delplace was a graduate of the Institut d’Études Supérieures des Arts.

A biography on her business website said she was a cellist with a degree in communications and cultural project management. Her mother was a Chilean national who had fled the country when it was controlled by the Pinochet regime.

A librarian by training, San Martin worked as a civil servant in Sevran, a town in the northeastern suburbs of Paris. She was also an active trade union representative.

"She went into exile to flee Pinochet's far-right regime in Chile and has died at the hands of religious fanatics in the country that welcomed her," Baptiste Talbot, a trade union official who was a friend of San Martin's for 20 years, told Le Parisien.

Chile's foreign ministry described San Martin as a "Chilean exile" and the niece of Chile's ambassador to Mexico, Ricardo Nunez. She was one of three Chileans were who killed in Friday's attacks.

Kheireddine Sahbi (29)

Sahbi, an Algerian violinist who was studying for a master’s in music at the Sorbonne, was heading home after a night out with his friends when he was killed in the 10th arrondissement.

Known as “Didine” to family and friends, he was deeply immersed in student life at the university, its president said.

“He lived in a neighbourhood on the edge of Algiers where the situation was very tense,” one of his cousins told the AFP news agency. He had “survived 10 years of terrorism”.

Two other Sorbonne students, Marion Lieffrig-Petard and Suzon Garrigues, also died in the attacks.

Djamila Houd (41)

Houd was one of 19 victims of the mass shooting at the Belle Équipe restaurant on rue de Charonne in the 11th arrondissement.

She was sitting at an outside table with some friends when a black Seat car pulled up and two men opened fire just after 9.30pm.

Originally from Dreux, southwest of Paris, Houd had been living in the city for a number of years. Her husband Gregory Reibenberg, who was with Houd when she died, is the majority shareholder in the Belle Équipe.

“I was holding her hand. We couldn’t revive her. We couldn’t do anything more,” Reibenberg told France 2 television. “She asked me to take care of our daughter, and I promised I would.”

On Sunday, Houd’s friends gathered on rue de Charonne to pay tribute at the spot where she was killed.

Précilia Correia (35)

Correia, a dual Portuguese-French national, was killed at the Bataclan alongside her French boyfriend,

Manu Perez

.

Born in Asnières-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris to a Portuguese mother and a French father, Correia worked at the Fnac at La Défense and was described by friends as a keen photographer who loved snowboarding and cooking.

"She was always smiling, and she loved having a good time with her friends and going to rock concerts," her younger sister told Libération. "She was rooted in Portuguese culture and would often go on holidays to Lisbon, where our family are originally from."

Correia had a degree in foreign languages and had also studied communications. “I have no words to tell you all the pain your departure causes me,” a friend wrote on Facebook.

Nohemi Gonzalez (23)

Gonzalez, who had dual US-Mexican nationality, had been studying in Paris on exchange from the

California State University

, Long Beach.

She was shot at the Belle Équipe, and although friends saw her being carried from the restaurant on a stretcher, she later died of her injuries. Gonzalez was an only child.

"She had big dreams. She wanted a different life to ours. She worked hard and always wanted to go to university to pursue a career," said her mother Beatriz Gonzalez.

Described as warm, energetic, self-confident and passionate about her studies, Gonzalez’s trip to France was her first time abroad.

“Yesterday, one of our students and a dear friend to many classmates, Nohemi Gonzalez, was senselessly murdered by Isis cowards in Paris,” design department lecturer Michael LaForte said on Facebook on Saturday.

“Our hearts are with her close friends and family.” Gonzalez’s last public post on Facebook said: “Learning a 3D modelling computer program in a language I don’t know is up there in the top 3 hardest things I’ve ever had to do. ?#?YouTubeIsMyBFF.”

Ludovic Boumbas (40)

Sociable, big-hearted and funny, according to friends, “Ludo” was born in

Congo

but grew up in Lille, in northern France.

He loved music and travel, had studied IT engineering and worked for Fedex in Paris for a number of years.

He was enjoying a birthday meal with friends at the Belle Équipe when he was killed.

Boumbas reportedly died while trying to shield a woman from the hail of bullets coming their way (she was shot in the arm but survived).

"What we feel above all is disgust, incomprehension and a feeling of injustice," one of his brothers, Basilide, told the regional paper La Voix du Nord as the family gathered for a minute's silence at Place de la République in Lille on Monday.

Boumbas’s bicycle was still locked in front of the Belle Équipe on Monday.

Halima Ben Khalifa Saadi (36)

Saadi, who was originally from

Tunisia

but lived in Paris, was celebrating her birthday with friends at the Belle Équipe last Friday night. She was killed instantly.

Her sister Houda (35), who had come to Paris from Senegal especially for the occasion, also died – as did several of their friends.

“I lay on the ground on my stomach hoping to avoid the bullets,” the sisters’ brother Khaled Saadi said. “When I heard that there was no more shooting, I raised my head, but they started shooting again, so I hid again.”

When the gunfire finally stopped, Khaled stood up and found his two sisters, along with friends and colleagues, in pools of blood.

"My first move was to look for my two sisters. So I found the first one, Halima Saadi. She died on the spot," he said. "And my second sister Houda, I tried to save her. I moved her with a friend of hers named Sam. We moved her to another restaurant nearby, and then we did the same for my other sister."

They talked to Houda, who was barely breathing, and assured her they were there. Paramedics arrived within about 20 minutes but told him there was little hope. He later learned Houda died on arrival at the hospital.

Nick Alexander (36)

Londoner Nick Alexander, merchandise manager with the Eagles of Death Metal, was killed at the Bataclan. His girlfriend, Polina Buckley, took to Twitter to search for him after news of the attack broke.

After learning of his death, she tweeted pictures of them together. “You are and always will be the love of my life, Nick Alexander,” she wrote.

Alexander's former girlfriend Helen Wilson was at the Bataclan with him and said they lay on the ground when the attackers started shooting. Wilson was injured in both legs, and Alexander was shot in front of her.

“Nick was not just our brother, son and uncle, he was everyone’s best friend, generous, funny and fiercely loyal,” his family said in a statement.

Valentin Ribet (26)

Ribet, one of the first victims to be identified at the Bataclan, was a lawyer with multinational law firm Hogan Lovells, specialising in white-collar crime. He had studied at the Sorbonne and the London School of Economics and completed his studies as a lawyer only last year.

His company described him as “a talented lawyer, extremely well liked and a wonderful personality in the office”.

Ribet was, through his mother, a fifth generation descendant of Thomas Addis Emmet, older brother of Robert Emmet, who was executed in 1803 for his role in the Dublin rebellion of that year.

Thomas Addis Emmet, a member of the United Irishmen, was jailed for his role in the 1798 rebellion. Released in 1802, he was in Paris when he heard of his brother’s arrest in 1803. A lawyer, he emigrated to New York, where he became attorney general in 1812.

Aurélie de Peretti (33)

De Peretti, from Saint-Tropez in the south of France, had come to Paris with her friend Élodie for a few days’ holiday after a long stretch working in a restaurant in her home town.

Months in advance, the two friends, who were both big music fans, had booked tickets for three concerts. First up was Eagles of Death Metal at the Bataclan on Friday night. There, de Peretti was shot dead and Élodie injured.

De Peretti’s father Jean-Marie, a journalist with the Nice-Matin group of newspapers, said his daughter was a “luminous” young woman who “loved life and loved music”. She played the guitar and the piano and had talked about the concert for months in advance.

Her death was “tragic, unjust,” her father said. De Peretti’s older sister Delphine, who travelled from her home in London to Paris as soon as she heard the news, said she felt as if part of her had been amputated.

Élodie Breuil (23)

Breuil, a design student from Boulogne-Billancourt in the western suburbs of Paris, was at the Bataclan with a group of friends on Friday night.

One friend, speaking to Time, said he became separated from Breuil and the others when the shooting began. He ran for the exit with another man, but that man was shot and fell. Once outside, Breuil's friend reunited with some of the group, but Breuil and one other were missing.

“Can you imagine?” Breuil’s brother Alexis said. “One day you’re just a happy teenager, playing video games. The next you’re laying in a pool of blood with corpses all around you.”

Alexis and his father spent Friday night rushing from hospital to hospital in search of Breuil before receiving confirmation that she was dead.