Diary Sow on August 7, 2020 in Senegal.

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AFP / presidency of Senegal

This letter asks more questions than it answers.

The young Senegalese student in Paris, Diary Sow, whose disappearance has stirred up her country, says she is fine and has taken "a little break to find (her) spirits", in exchanges published Thursday evening by a relative.

The words made public by the Minister of Water Serigne Mbaye Thiam, who took the student under his wing, are the first manifestation of reliable and public life on her part since her disappearance in early January.

We finally have some good news from #DiarySow.

In a letter she sent me, followed by several exchanges in recent days, she breaks the silence for the first time.

With his agreement and the authorization of his family, below are some extracts from his letter.

pic.twitter.com/dFwc4NPEB6

- Serigne Mbaye THIAM (@smthiam) January 21, 2021

Diary Sow, 20, enrolled in preparatory class at the prestigious Parisian lycée Louis-Le-Grand, said he had sought a kind of “salutary respite” without being able to explain the reason.

She declares herself surprised and "sorry" for the emotion that her disappearance has caused.

The published exchanges say nothing of the place is the young woman, known in Senegal as the embodiment of academic excellence and success.

The minister published these extracts from a letter and exchanges with her on her Twitter account, with her agreement and that of her family.

"This tweet is really mine," he confirmed to AFP.

But it does not specify the nature of the exchanges.

It is not known whether he spoke to him verbally or only in writing.

The disappearance of the young woman gave rise to a number of erroneous information and infox.

Best student in Senegal

“If I hadn't come forward until now, it was for the simple reason that I was unable to do so,” she said mysteriously.

“I left enough clues behind me to know that I was leaving of my own accord.

I am not hiding.

I am not running away.

See it as a kind of salutary respite in my life, ”she tells her mentor.

The one who was distinguished best student of Senegal in 2018 and 2019 ensures not to have given in to pressure or doubts.

“I haven't tripped up because of the confinement or the prep,” she says.

"Those who seek a rational explanation for my act will be disappointed since he has none," she said.

She speaks of "irrepressible, unreasonable and so deeply irrational desire", and "never thought that (her) name was going to fuel so much debate, that so many people were going to worry".

"Deeply sorry"

She begs her mentor “to reassure people who are looking for me.

I'm fine, I'm safe.

Know that I am terribly, deeply sorry ”.

After her baccalaureate in 2019, Diary Sow, from a modest background, obtained an excellence scholarship which allowed her to integrate the preparatory class of Louis-Le-Grand, where she studies physics, chemistry and engineering.

Senegal is passionate about his fate.

According to a Senegalese student association in Toulouse, the young woman spent the end of year vacation in this city in southwestern France with her best friend, a medical student.

But she did not show up on January 4 at the resumption of classes at Louis-Le-Grand, an absence that was unlike her according to her relatives.

Her disappearance was reported on January 7 and Senegalese student circles got under way on social networks and in the 13th arrondissement of Paris, where she lives in a university residence.

Senegalese President Macky Sall himself has given instructions to find her, according to Senegal's Ambassador to France, Maguette Sèye.

An investigation had been opened in France for "worrying" disappearance.

A source close to the case, however, wanted to be reassuring in recent days and said that the thesis of voluntary departure was privileged.

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