He was the caretaker of the building where the Brazilian Fernanda Santos Oliveira has lived for less than a year in the Batignolles neighborhood, northwest of Pariswho informed the police that she had back to the address this Monday (22)after 15 days missing.
His return, however, did not end the mystery of those 15 days of absence, during which authorities and groups of volunteers mobilized in the streets and on social networks in search of Fernandaunsuccessfully.
Upon arriving at the building where Fernanda lived, the police found her in an apartment that was not hers and found that she was not well. “She seemed weak and refused to communicate. Therefore, she was taken to the medico-judicial unit for a behavioral examination,” a police source told Le Figaro newspaper. This Tuesday (23), Fernanda was compulsorily admitted to a psychiatric institution in Paris.
Nellma Barreto, president of the Mulheres na Resistência/Femmes de la Résistance collective, which put up posters with photographs of Fernanda around the city and visited her in the hospital on Monday, says that the Brazilian was “confused, a little disoriented and very downhearted”.
“She also had very injured feet. Even though she disappeared so recently, I wouldn’t recognize her if I saw her on the street,” he said.
“She said she was tired, worked long hours a day and was having personal problems. But her accounts are vague. And she has little recollection of those days she was away.”
According to Barreto, Fernanda said that, after walking a long way, she took refuge in an abandoned house on the outskirts of Paris. “She doesn’t remember eating or drinking anything on those days, although we have information that her credit card was used on the 16th,” she says.
Last week, the police were informed that a person with the physical characteristics of Fernanda had been seen on a train, in Melun, a city 50 kilometers southeast of Paris. “We searched there all weekend, but she only reappeared at home and on Monday”, says Barreto.
According to information from the Consulate General of Brazil in Paris, Fernanda went to the Hôtel-Dieu Hospital, in the center, and then to the Psychiatric Infirmary of the Prefecture of Police, which determined her hospitalization at the Sainte-Anne Hospital Center, the largest psychiatric care institution in the city. French capital.
“The Consulate General of Brazil in Paris remains in contact with the French authorities involved, in order to transmit all available information to the family”, says the note. “It should be noted that medical secrecy in France in cases of hospitalization, particularly of a psychiatric nature, is extremely strict.”
Fernanda is originally from Botucatu, in the interior of São Paulo, and has a son and two grandchildren. The 44-year-old Brazilian worked in a restaurant in the French capital and maintained daily contact with family members.
Her sister, Maria Aparecida Santos de Oliveira, 53, says she doesn’t believe she had any kind of outbreak. “They’re doing tests on her and the family didn’t get any results. I don’t believe in an outbreak. Only if there’s proof of it,” she says.
According to her, the family has no resources to go to France to follow the case in person.
