The struggle against the right to disappear: the shaky journey to locate Lutfiya on the streets of Paris

Three days after she was first absent, Lutfiya was taken to the emergency room - but then disappeared again.

Since then the long journey began to follow in her footsteps.

In a conversation with Walla!

Members of the search team share about the great miss of the hospital, the confrontation with the bureaucracy in France - and the happy ending.

"We turned worlds to find her"

Yoav Itiel

10/03/2022

Thursday, 10 March 2022, 20:38 Updated: Friday, 11 March 2022, 09:38

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The 52-year-old missing Lotia Zabad from Baqa al-Gharbiya returned home last night after being lost during a trip on October 8, 2019. The happy surprise began on Monday night, when a vigilant Lebanese young woman from one of the many food-free associations in Paris met Lotia for some time. , Managed to persuade her to give her details - so a check on the police system immediately brought up the message that she was missing.

Smadar Bustan, an Israeli academic living in Paris, a researcher and lecturer in the field of medicine and philosophy, has been researching Lutfiya for more than two years.

In a conversation with Walla!

France said that "the young members of the association were also able to search for information on social networks and contact her family directly, so while everyone was rejoicing from Baka to Garbia at midnight, Lutfiya was examined at my request at a hospital. In the absence of an Israeli consular presence for reasons that I hope will become clear later. "

Smadar was at that time in the north of France, a four-hour drive from Paris.

"Luckily for us, the person in charge of the missing in France, Superintendent Lionel Monaco, who is on sick leave without being able to walk, managed everything from his home with his staff for 24 consecutive hours. With the support of senior French police officers, they gave me legal powers in the absence of an Israeli consul D. in the 12th arrondissement rallied to help until I arrived in Paris in the evening to take Lotia to my house, where she was joined by her brother Rasem who came to accompany her on a flight to Israel.

"Last night I said goodbye to them with great excitement, but it is important to tell this story not only because it has a happy ending and miracles, but also because the French Missing Persons Unit wanted to convey an important message to the public here."

More on Walla!

She remembered who she was after two and a half years: the Israeli who had disappeared in Paris was found

To the full article

Dealt two years in searches.

Orchard with Lutfiya (Photo: courtesy of the family)

The locating team (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

More on Walla!

• Reunited with her family after two and a half years: the Israeli who disappeared in Paris landed in Israel

According to Gabi Lopez, a Parisian member of the Magnus team, the Israeli-international search and rescue company that launched an intensive search immediately after Lutfia's disappearance and admits, " ".

She adds that "this is a strange disappearance case of its kind, and also an unusual search for us. We are usually engaged in locating and rescuing in nature, in the city."

Immediately upon receiving the report, Magnus set up a team of four people assisted by local volunteers who engaged in about 10 days of intensive searches while preparing the infrastructure to respond to reports that might one day lead to the missing person being found.

"Our volunteers searched and scanned and at the same time hung posters and handed out flyers announcing her absence," Lopez says.

"Being a heavy smoker then, we concentrated on posters in tobacco shops around her place of disappearance, for example. We were in contact with the police, the media, Muslim welfare organizations, mosques, taxi organizations, airports, what not. We physically reached metro stations, hospitals, hostels and street corners. "Even in the makeshift and dangerous tent city known as Colin de Crack by the city's drug addicts, we came up with our search, and nothing."

"There were a lot of suspicions and assumptions surrounding Lutfiya's disappearance and I don't think there was a single wild hypothesis that was not raised," Bustan says.

"How else do we explain that a woman who lives a completely normal family life, raises three children, and suffers from schizophrenia but functions normatively, disappears one day and becomes homeless on the streets of Paris? In retrospect, when she was found last Monday, it turned out that none of our assumptions were true and what happened It can happen to anyone who finds himself in a foreign country, who does not speak her language, who is in one way or another helpless and therefore simply gets lost. .

Accidentally entered the picture following a post by the daughter.

Jasmine and Lopez (Photo: courtesy of the family)

Lutfia Mahmoud Zabad, a resident of Baqa al-Gharbiya who has been missing for two and a half years.

March 8, 2022 (Photo: Photos by surfers, section 27A of the Copyright Law)

Awareness of locating Lutfiya.

Disappeared twice (Photo: courtesy of the family)

According to Lopez, the biggest frustration in the affair was that Lutfiya disappeared twice.

On the evening of Saturday, October 11, 2019, three days after her disappearance, she was taken by ambulance to the emergency room of the Couchin Hospital in the 14th arrondissement of Paris, suffering from minor injuries.

There was no suspicion of criminality.

"They had a hard time communicating with her because she did not speak French and did not really speak English, and they did not think of operating an Arabic-speaking person who is actually in hospitals in France," she recalls.

"They also did not recognize that there might be a mental problem. She was treated and released the next day, Saturday, October 12, at 9:00 a.m., without the doctors even realizing that she was missing. We understand she is the one who really wanted to leave the hospital. Only then did we get "A message about that. I ran there, our poster about her absence was still hanging there in the emergency room and when I got to the hospital director she had our flyer on the table, but they did not connect one by one and did not recognize her when she was there."

Lopez says it was a most embarrassing moment.

"They expressed great sorrow. In retrospect we know she was still wearing the clothes she was wearing on the day of her disappearance, except for the vest. I was surprised they did not check in more depth. Cameras recorded her coming out of the hospital and some hundred meters away, and she and she disappeared into the crowd. The bag she deposited, then when it became clear to them that it was there, also contained her passport which expired in 2014 so that it was no longer in her possession and further reduced the chance that someone could ever tie her to her identity. "To nothing and came to the conclusion that these were receipts that she had just collected for the case. We conducted searches in the 13th and 14th districts and did not find her."

Bustan says that two main difficulties stood in the way.

"The first was due to the hospital's terrible irresponsibility and released her without checking who she was and especially without returning her passport. This created a situation where Lutfiya was left without an ID card and became completely anonymous (une personne sous x). The second difficulty stemmed from French law protecting the right of People disappear and oblige all the associations that take care of the homeless, the Red Cross and especially the police, not to give any information about the missing person, even to his immediate family members, without permission from the missing person himself. Massive of all the associations, because what if Lutfia really chose to disappear and we have to respect her will? "This does not sound like a search for missing persons in France."

Tobacco shops where flyers were left around Paris (Photo: courtesy of the family)

"It's hard to sum up two and a half years of street survival."

Lutfia before her absence (Photo: Courtesy of the family)

In January 2020, about three months after his disappearance, Lutfia's brother Lotia arrived from Israel with his friend Abad, a French-speaking lawyer to find out the situation and for three weeks deafened the city on foot as he searched and cheated.

Then came the corona, followed by the closures - and then another blow - when Jasmine's father and brother died of the corona.

"She kept insisting that her mother was alive and needed to be found and we continued to search even when we were left with a very small staff," Bustan adds.

"Along the way, the search was accompanied by Superintendent Lionel Monaco, who is in charge of the missing persons unit in France. There were quite a few disappointments. There were a lot of false reports on the Internet. "Officially for the purpose of a police investigation. There were also crooks outside of Israel who tried to extort money from the family in exchange for information and Lutfiya and her two brothers lived like this between hope and disappointment."

After a year and a half, the French police closed the case as required by law.

"Luckily for us, Inspector Monaco, who took the story personally, continued a nationwide search, initiated moves and was in constant contact with us to keep up to date, checking all vague information on foot and remaining patient in the face of general frustration and especially very attentive to Jasmine who kept begging them to help."

"It is difficult to sum up two and a half years of survival on the street, but it turns out that it all started with confusion. Lutfia, without a cell phone, was frightened because she thought she had lost the group that crossed the road on the Champs Elysees, and turned to seek them. "Speaking to them in English,"

"From the moment we found the pace, it was fast," says Smadar Bustan. What happened to Lutfiya, thousands of people simply get lost in France every year, although most of them are soon after. The place "I need help, please take me to the Israeli embassy".

"I hope that Lutfiya, who is happy to return to her family, will feel safe and protected again despite the trauma she went through, receive the proper professional care and sensitive support," she concludes.

"I also hope that our beloved Jasmine will finally have a peaceful life. All that remains is to close the circle with Inspector Monaco, who admitted in a phone call that he is terribly sad that he did not get to meet Lotia, to whom he devoted two and a half years of his professional life."

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