At 2:40 am, in the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, a child is sleeping on the bench of a bus stop, near the Porte de Saint-Ouen, between the 17th and 18th arrondissements.
Mamadou, 10, is exhausted.
It's been 36 hours since he left his school in Chennevières and wanders the streets.
Impossible to find the apartment where his grandma lives in the 19th arrondissement.
He probably doesn't realize that everyone is looking for him.
Finally, at this hour, there are only a few cars that roam the streets of the capital to find him.
Of the hundred or so inhabitants mobilized, many have returned home.
Relatives of the child continue to turn around relentlessly in several vehicles.
They chose this neighborhood because they know that the grandmother lives nearby.
A story of marbles
"It was my cousin who saw him on this bench," says Aïssetou, the mother.
He launched Mamadou!
Mamadou!
But my son doesn't know who it was.
He ran away. "
Immediately, the cousins call the mom.
"I was in another car a little further."
Moments later, Aïssetou saw an emotion that she will never forget in her life.
“I shouted Mamadou!
Mamadou!
He threw himself into my arms ”.
The end of the nightmare for this family: "It is the happiest moment of my life with the birth of my children."
Right after, there is only love.
And then, slowly, "without pointing him", his relatives ask him the questions everyone wanted to ask him.
What happened?
Why did he leave?
Why didn't he give the alert?
Where has he slept?
Calmly, Mamadou recounts what happened to him.
This is his testimony, with necessarily all the tweezers to take with a 10-year-old kid.
This Monday at 4.30 p.m., he leaves his school in Hauts de Chennevières where he is educated in CM2.
"One of his friends said to him:
Come with me, I'll give you marbles,
" says his mother.
"He was hopping like a happy and vibrant child"
At what precise moment does he meet this boyfriend?
"Everything is not yet clear", relativizes Aïssetou who had not yet been able to come into contact with the family of the comrade this late Thursday afternoon.
“He then followed his boyfriend, who used to take the bus home.
The boyfriend gets off at the usual stop. "
He stays in public transport.
"He goes down a few stops further" and gets lost, with no cell phone on him.
"He took the bus home again," says his mother.
But he ends up at Champigny station.
This journey between Chennevières and Champigny, investigators find it difficult to trace it precisely.
Eight minutes after leaving school, Pince-Vent's CCTV cameras film him as he walks around the mall.
"He was all alone and he was hopping like a happy, vibrant child," observed a source close to the investigation.
The dog of the canine squad sniffs his trail well, but it doesn't work.
At Champigny station, Mamadou gets on the RER A. Half an hour later, he is at Nation.
The child is completely lost in the capital.
He then thinks of his grandma who lives at Porte de Saint-Ouen.
He could find her in Paris.
Too difficult.
The schoolboy wanders around the station.
A lady meets him in Denfert at 4 a.m.
"Why didn't anyone worry that a child of this age is left alone?"
During these 36 hours, all those who went in search of him did not stop questioning.
Well, yes.
Several people asked him what he was doing there.
Only here, Mamadou was well brought up.
Her parents always told her not to talk to strangers on the street.
“As soon as someone came towards him, he ran,” explains his mother.
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This is the case for example of this lady who crosses the path of the child at 4 o'clock in the morning Tuesday, in Denfert-Rochereau, and who gives the alert.
On all the testimonies received during this journey, Aïssetou did not doubt for a moment that this one was worthy of faith: “She described the gesture that Mamadou made with his hands when she asked him what he was doing there. .
That mimicry was him. "
Fleeing from the adults, the schoolboy manages on his own.
That first night, he spent it "in a corner of the station where there are benches".
The rest of the journey is more blurred.
The next day, a waitress from the KFC of Denfert-Rochereau, questioned by about thirty residents who left to search for the child on Tuesday evening, swears to have recognized him with her ears sticking out in the middle of other kids who wanted to order chicken when they did not have enough to pay.
"I did not expect such solidarity"
“It wasn't him,” says his mother.
My son is very discreet and very calm.
He could not have ended up with other children. ”
On the other hand, it was in this neighborhood that his schoolbag was found in the street.
Chennevières, this Tuesday evening.
The father of the child was with elected officials and a hundred citizens to organize the research.
LP / Denis Courtine
Why did he abandon it?
“He stopped to sleep and used his backpack as a pillow.
Afterwards, he forgot it, he told me. ”
We do not know, afterwards, how Mamadou managed to get to the north of Paris where he was found by one of the crews looking for him.
“I did not expect such solidarity.
I can't thank everyone who participated enough, says his mother.
I say this from the bottom of my heart.
They gave me strength and courage. ”
This Thursday afternoon, Mamadou was among his family.
No one scolded him: “I reassured him.
He got lost, that's it. "