Missing Vietnamese student in France pronounced dead

HANOI: Nguyen Bich Ngoc, a 27-year-old Vietnamese student who went missing in France earlier this year, was pronounced dead by her family on Tuesday (June 4) after more than five months of extensive searching.

“There was no miracle,” said Vu Quang Minh, Vietnamese Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.

“According to a family statement, Ngoc has died in France. I send my deepest condolences to the family,” Minh added.

Ngọc, known by her nickname “Emma” to foreign friends, had been studying in a postgraduate programme at the SKEMA Business School’s Grand Paris Campus since 2022. She went to Amsterdam in the Netherlands for an internship from September to December 2023.

On Jan 28, Ngoc’s parents in Vietnam had a two-hour-long call with her, which was the last they heard of Ngọc for about a month.

According to Ngoc’s father, Nguyen Cao Dang, the family was doing all that they could to search for her, and they believed that the girl went missing in either France or the Netherlands.

According to her parents, Ngọc, who was due to graduate in June, had been offered a job at an American investment bank believed by the family to be Goldman Sachs’ Amsterdam branch, where she earlier worked as an intern.

Ngoc had previously told her family that she rented a room in an apartment run by a Senegalese woman during her internship in Amsterdam. However, her European visa was due to expire in September, and the family believed that Ngoc went back to France as the visa deadline started approaching.

Dang said that the family has been sleepless waiting for news of Ngọc.

Dang went to Hagen in May to search for his daughter, but to no avail. — Vietnam News/ANN