Maybe he was at home. Maybe he was at his favorite Swiss hotel.
It had been 35 days since anyone saw the president of Cameroon — or, at least, since anyone had revealed his whereabouts — and people in the central African country had questions.
“Sir, are you alive?” one man asked on Twitter.
The public absence of Paul Biya — who, at 87, is the oldest leader in Africa — during the coronavirus pandemic fueled outrage, concern and wild theories before the strongman turned up Thursday in a photo with the French ambassador to Cameroon.