Disparition de Diary Sow : de Toulouse à Paris, où est passée l'étudiante sénégalaise ?
The greatest mystery still surrounds the disappearance in France of Diary Sow, a brilliant 20-year-old Senegalese girl studying in Paris. She hasn't been seen since 4 January after a visit to Toulouse where she spent the end-of-year holidays with her best friend, a medical student, according to a Senegalese student association in Toulouse. She then evaporated.
According to Amadou Diallo, Senegalese consul general in Paris, contacted by Le Parisien,
"the criminal hypothesis now seems to have been ruled out. There is good reason to believe that we will eventually find her safe and sound. But we must remain cautious," he explains to our colleagues.
On Monday 4 January, the first day of the new school year, her badge was indeed detected at the door of her student residence in Paris and she would then have appeared in the view of the video surveillance cameras installed on the route leading to her high school. According to the Senegalese website SeneNews, the search of her student room revealed that several personal belongings and clothes had been taken from her room.
But Diary Sow, Senegal's best student in 2018 and 2019, "Miss Sciences" in 2017, did not resume her classes in the preparatory class at the prestigious Louis-Le-Grand high school in Paris. The Senegalese community is very mobilised and attentive to the slightest information communicated by the authorities. "We know since yesterday (Editor's note: Wednesday) that it is not in Toulouse, contrary to what was said at first, that she disappeared but in Paris," according to the communication officer of the association of Senegalese students in Toulouse. "So we decided not to organise a gathering here. However, we are following the investigation closely, hoping to find her safe and sound".
However, ten days after her disappearance, all leads were still being considered, even if running away seems to be the better alternative. This young woman is nevertheless known in Senegal as the embodiment of excellence and success at school.
The Senegalese Minister of Water and Sanitation Serigne Mbaye Thiam, who is close to Diary Sow's family, says he himself "discussed at some length", on 1 January, with the young woman in particular about the competitive exams she was planning to take to start studying engineering. They had agreed to talk again on 10 January.
"There was nothing to suggest any anxiety on her part, or any particular state of mind," said Serigne Mbaye Thiam, who also described her as "very studious, very absorbed in reading, writing and painting". "She was quite reserved, quite cautious in her relationships, very attached to her family and her country," he said. "We are worried, perplexed. We are expectant," added the minister, refusing to "fall into conjecture and supposition. "The most prudent attitude is to wait until the investigation is concluded and that she comes back to us safe and sound".
BBM