Following a letter from the mother of the teenager, found hanged in a park in Lormont, claiming that her daughter was being bullied at school, the Bordeaux prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "school bullying".

Why did 16-year-old Tyah take her own life? A week after the discovery of her body hanging in a park in Lormont, (Gironde), the Bordeaux prosecutor's office opened an investigation for "school harassment" on Tuesday, to "determine the veracity of the facts," it told Le Parisien, confirming information from the Radio France agency.

The opening of this investigation follows a letter sent by the 16-year-old girl's mother on Thursday, January 29, to the Bordeaux education authority. According to our information, the investigation has been entrusted to the Office for Minors (OFMIN).

"Mockery" and "insults"

On January 29th, Hatyce Tyah Halidi Selemani, a 16-year-old high school student in Pessac (Gironde), was found dead in Lormont, in the Bordeaux metropolitan area. The young woman was found hanged in the Parc de l'Ermitage by a passerby. The autopsy, performed on January 30th, "confirmed that the cause of death was consistent with mechanical asphyxiation by autolytic cervical ligation," the prosecutor's office stated. In other words, Tuah's death was due to an action on her neck that caused her asphyxiation, without any external intervention, thus confirming the suicide theory.

According to her family, "Tyah was a victim of bullying at school," her brother, Erwan, told Le Parisien on Thursday, mentioning "teasing" and "insults." While he doesn't know when it started, he says his sister informed the school on December 18th, during an appointment with the school nurse at Pape-Clément High School in Pessac. "The school never took any action afterward," Erwan claims.

Was the teenager's suicide linked to the school bullying she claimed to be experiencing? Her mother has no doubt. "Tyah confided in another student, saying that if the bullying continued, she would take her own life," she told our colleagues at BFMTV. For its part, the Bordeaux education authority has opened an administrative inquiry. "Current evidence suggests that the young girl received support from her school, although no bullying situation was formally identified," the authority stated in a press release, adding that an investigation has been launched "to gather all the necessary information."

Several days of research

The teenager had been missing since January 12th. That day, Tyah left her high school, Pape Clément, in Pessac at midday to go home for lunch. She was supposed to return to class in the afternoon, but never showed up at the school, which alerted her family. "She took her phone, but not her schoolbag," said Erwan, her older brother, contacted by Le Parisien, who initially "thought it was just a short runaway."

But after several hours without news, her family, unable to reach her by phone, reported her missing. Tyah's loved ones quickly launched appeals for help, posting numerous messages on social media, in an attempt to find the teenager. On January 20, a public appeal for witnesses was issued by law enforcement. Significant resources were also deployed to locate the high school student, but to no avail. This culminated in the tragic discovery of her lifeless body on January 29.

Since Tyah's disappearance, her family and friends have mobilized to try and find her. The teenager's cell phone initially pinged a cell tower in the Bacalan district of Bordeaux, before losing its geolocation, according to her brother, Erwan. He maintained that his sister, a student at the Pape Clément high school in Pessac, had been involved in an altercation with other students on the morning of her disappearance, January 12th.