The identity of "Little Miss Nobody" is now known
The largest hostage-taking of the second half of the post-war period took place in 1964 in Stanleyville (now Kisangani) in the Democratic Republic of Congo. 1,600 Europeans, including 525 Belgians, were held hostage for several weeks by the Simba rebellion. This tragedy resulted in the death of around 30 men, women and children, who were massacred by the rebels.
2,375 hostages of all nationalities were freed thanks to the intervention of 569 Belgian paratroopers. A newspaper reporter took a photo of a girl who escaped from hell. Her face and clothes were stained with blood, that of her uncle who was killed before her eyes. The photo would become the evocative image of this bloody affair. It would travel around the world, but it took more than 50 years for the young model's identity to become known. This is because the child, who was completely traumatised by what she had just experienced, was unable to utter a single word.
We now know that it was a resident of Nivelles, Brigitte Peneff, who was 7 years old at the time. Fifty years after the events, she returned to the Congo, and to her hometown, for the first time. Emotional, holding a bouquet of flowers to pay homage to the victims, both Belgian and Congolese, she returned to her family home and the Hôtel des Chutes, where she was held for several weeks with her family and many others.