The case has caused a great stir in the commune of Wakhinane-Nimzatt, in Guédiawaye. Two 13-year-old girls, missing since Sunday, were found Thursday in Rufisque after enduring a harrowing ordeal.

A four-day ordeal

The two girls, sixth-grade students, were held captive in a room at the Khelcom market by a man named S. Diouf, alias "Baye Zale." According to their damning testimonies, the 20-year-old suspect allegedly abused them in turn for three consecutive nights. Medical examinations subsequently confirmed that they had recently had sexual relations with him.

The complicity of the kidnapper's mother

The most shocking aspect of the investigation, notes L'Observateur, lies in the role of the suspect's mother, N. Sow (40 years old). While she vehemently denied the presence of the minors, the victims stated that she was fully aware of the situation. She knowingly covered up the girls' presence in the family home, lying to the desperate parents who came to retrieve their children. Even more serious, the newspaper of the Groupe Futurs Médias emphasizes, she prepared the meals herself and brought them upstairs to feed the teenagers and her son.

The instinct of a mother-investigator

The victims owed their lives to the tenacity of one of the mothers. "Driven by an infallible maternal instinct, [she] transformed herself into an investigator. Her search, which began at her home in Gadaye, led her on Thursday to Yeumbeul, then to the Khelcom market in Wakhinane, where a cart driver pointed out a suspicious house: that of Baye Zale's family."

“On the scene,” the same source continued, “the confrontation was heated. The suspect’s mother, displaying disconcerting coldness, denied everything. She swore that her son wasn’t there and that the children were absent. Mr. Diène’s mother didn’t believe this and went upstairs. She knocked on the door of a room where the suspect was indeed present.”

Sensing the net closing in, S. Diouf managed to discreetly exfiltrate the teenage girls before fleeing. The minors were eventually recovered in Rufisque, at a relative's home, before being taken to the police station. While "Baye Zale," a notorious criminal, is currently being actively sought by law enforcement, his mother could not escape arrest. She was brought before the Pikine-Guédiawaye prosecutor's office on Friday for complicity in kidnapping and unlawful confinement. The investigation continues to apprehend the kidnapper.