The emotion was palpable late Friday afternoon, in front of the reception center for asylum seekers in Pau where Cyril was killed.

This official was stabbed 10 times by a 38-year-old Sudanese man late in the morning in his office.

He died of his injuries. 

REPORT

"He was a good, attentive man."

The emotion and the incomprehension are palpable Friday evening in Pau, a few hours after the murder of Cyril, one of the managers of the reception center for asylum seekers (Cada) Isard COS, killed with a knife by a 38-year-old Sudanese .

"He was a man who listened to everyone, our boss. He took care of us", testifies at the microphone of Europe 1 Léonard, one of the residents of the center who arrived from the Republic of Congo two years ago.

"It is thanks to him that I am here"

"It is thanks to him that I am here, thanks to him that I was able to do a training course", continues Léonard.

"It's very sad. Why kill someone who works for the good of others?"

And the young man is not the only one in front of the center to salute the professionalism and the investment of the father of 46 years, who succumbed to his injuries after receiving ten stab wounds.

He was head of department in this Cada for 12 years. 

The assailant known to the police for acts of violence

Now, investigators are working to understand the motive for this murder.

The assailant, a 38-year-old man who arrived from Sudan in 2015, is known to the police for acts of violence in 2017, and had been in prison, but he was unknown to the intelligence services.

The man went to the administrative premises of Cada around 11 a.m. to meet the head of the asylum center.

While he was in his office, "employees were alerted by screams and immediately called the police," said the Pau prosecutor's office.

Police and emergency services discovered the victim on the ground, carrying several wounds, mainly in the thorax.

The alleged attacker was then kept in an annex office by employees of the center, detailed the public prosecutor of Pau Cécile Gensac in a statement. 

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A new refusal of refugee status

The alleged murderer did not live at the center, but had been taken into care there in the past.

He had just been refused his refugee status by Ofpra (French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons).

It seems that it was this new refusal that triggered the act.

The man was taken into custody for murder and an investigation entrusted to the departmental security of the Pau police.

For his part, Gérald Darmanin went there at the end of the afternoon to express his "solidarity" with this tragedy.

The Minister of the Interior also praised this associative structure which "does an admirable job on the national territory", before having a thought for "the family of the victim, his children, and all his colleagues".