Lassana

Bathily

Nationality

Malian

In January 10th, 2015 Lassana Bathily was

a young man from Mali living in France

who, like so many other asylum seekers in

the country with no documentation, was

waiting for the renewal of his residence

permit.

o the waiting

In the meantime he was working as a shop assistant at

the Hyper Cacher, a Jewish supermarket in Paris.

A few short seconds were to turn his upside down…

Lassana was just a few minutes from the

end of his shift at the supermarket,

unpacking frozen items in the basement.

Suddenly her heard a flurry of gunfire

upstairs and saw about a dozen people

fleeing down the stairs towards him

Upstairs a man called Ahmed Coulibaly (in

the bottom righthand corner of this

picture), had shot and killed four people. He

was holding several other shoppers

hostage and ordered the cashier to round

up the others.

Lassana tried to urge people to escape but

when no one would take the risk, he ushered

them into the refrigerated room, flicking off

the light and the motor. Then despite the

risk to himself of getting caught, he made

his own escape.

“My heart was beating so hard that I was

scared I’d be heard,” he said.

He managed to climb out of a

window and rushed towards the

police who had surrounded the

building. At first they thought

Lassana was involved in the attack.

Eventually they realised that they

were wrong and followed Lassana’s

directions to where the hostages

were hiding. Thankfully the police

were able to end the attack and

guide the petrified hostages to

safety.

As the story of Lassana’s heroic actions came to

light, he was hailed a hero and an online petition was

set up calling for him to be given French citizenship.

It gained over 420,000 supporters. and several days

after the violence, he was granted French citizenship

by the President himself, something Lassana says

had been a dream since his childhood.

The story of his actions spread around the world but

he wouldn't accept the title of hero, “No, I’m not a

hero.’ I did something that had to be done.”

The attack on the Hyper Cache came

two days after a deadly shooting at

the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper

in Paris by Islamist terrorists. Much

was made about Bathily being a

Muslim saving Jewish people.

Bathily’s response to that, "Yes, I

helped Jews get out. We're brothers,

it's not that we're Jewish or Christian

or Muslims, we're all in the same

boat. You help so you can get through

this attack,"

His actions have not been forgotten; to mark the five

years since the event, a documentary for French TV

was made to honour him entitled “Lassana Bathily: A

Hero Despite Himself” One of the producers of the

documentary, who travelled back to Mali with Bathily

to meet his family commented that “He has a family

and parents who gave him strong values. He says that

his religion helped him make the right choices when it

was necessary.” Bathily adds, “God did not create us

to kill each other. It’s only when people realise this that

we can advance. That is the goal to which I would like

to dedicate my life”.