Nicoleta Diac

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Nicoleta Diac was born in Romania and shared a flat with some friends in Coslada, who later told media that their flatmate had not had an easy life: her parents had turned their backs on her for rejecting her Catholic tradition. Nicoleta worked as a housekeeper in Madrid and dreamed of opening a pizzeria. Although she didn’t normally go to work that early, her boss was about to have a baby and on 11 March took an early morning train. Nicoleta had been excited to hear news of the baby, who was born that same day. The young Romanian woman died on the train that was blown up alongside Calle Tellez.

11 March 2004 fell on a Thursday. Early that morning, a number of terrorists with links to Al-Qaeda planted thirteen bombs on four suburban trains covering routes running through Madrid. Ten of the bombs exploded between 7.37 and 7.39 am, when the trains were at Atocha, El Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations and alongside Calle Téllez. 191 people were killed in the attack and around 1,500 were wounded. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Spanish history. On 3 April 2004, agents from the Special Operations Group (GEO) were about to enter an apartment in Leganés where the perpetrators of the attacks were believed to be hiding when the terrorists detonated twenty kilograms of explosives in an act of collective suicide. The ensuing blast killed one of the officers, bringing the total number of people killed by the 11 March bombers to 192.

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