This March 22, 2016, Shanti De Corte, 17, was to fly to Rome for a graduation trip.
With her classmates, she was in the hall of the airport when terrorists detonated bombs, a few meters from her.
The teenager escaped without physical injury.
But she never recovered from the trauma.
Last May, the Fleming was euthanized in Belgium, surrounded by her family, reports several Belgian media including RTBF.
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After several requests for euthanasia were refused, the young woman ended up “leaving in peace”.
“I laughed and cried until the very last day, she wrote on her Facebook page as an epitaph (the content was deleted on Thursday).
I loved and I was allowed to feel what true love was.
(…) I will now leave in peace, know that I miss you already.
»
For years, Shanti De Corte tried to get out of it.
A few weeks after the attacks in Brussels at the airport and in the metro, which cost the lives of 32 people, the teenager is hospitalized in a psychiatric structure.
She goes back and forth to the hospital, swallows up to eleven antidepressants at breakfast.
"I couldn't do without it," she confides on Facebook, which she uses as a diary.
When Shanti is better, she is overflowing with projects, telling the press that she wants to “live and help others.
Become living proof that you can recover from everything, depression and trauma.
Those moments never lasted long.
She attempted suicide in 2020. Her drug treatment increased.
Those around her are worried: Shanti has already made several requests for euthanasia for unalterable mental suffering.
All refused.
A care offer refused by the young woman
Alerted by this situation, a therapist from Ostend makes an offer of care to the young girl, reports RTBF.
“I was informed that Shanti suffered from complex trauma and that the only solution offered to her to date is the acceptance of her request for euthanasia, she wrote to the psychiatrist who takes care of her.
Without obviously questioning this solution a priori, my experience in victimology raises some questions in me.
This is the reason why, I would like to meet Shanti if you agree when I am in Ostend, the week of April 25th.
»
But Shanti De Corte's psychiatrist declines the proposal.
"Dear Mrs. Neyrolles, I have transferred your proposal to the patient and to the medical team taking care of her," she replied.
Mademoiselle De Corte asks me to tell you that she is not interested in your proposal.
»
The student then contacts Leif, an association that defends the right to die with dignity.
Last April, she filed a new request for euthanasia for irrevocable mental suffering.
This time, two psychiatrists validate it.
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“The young girl was in such psychological suffering that her request was logically accepted”, justifies to RTBF the Federal Commission for the Control and Evaluation of Euthanasia.
A judicial investigation concerning the euthanasia of Shanti De Corte would have been opened at the Antwerp public prosecutor's office.
Contacted by the Belgian media, the prosecution did not confirm the information.
This story resurfaces as the European Court of Human Rights condemned Brussels on Tuesday for "failures" in the a posteriori control of euthanasia.
Belgium and the Netherlands were the first two European countries 20 years ago to have authorized euthanasia, namely death caused by a caregiver at the request of a patient.
