Agence France-Presse said the family lived in Corbeil Essonnes, a southern Parisian suburb. Miss Bakari is of Comoran descent.

Sixty-six French citizens were on the flight, and Alain Joyandet, France’s minister for international cooperation, went to Moroni to assist authorities there. After visiting Bakari in the hospital, he called her survival “a true miracle” and relayed what she had said about her ordeal.

“She held on to a piece of the plane from 1.30 am to 3 pm,” Joyandet said. She signalled to a passing boat, and it was able to pick her up. “She really showed incredible physical and moral strength,” he said, adding that she was expected to be transferred Wednesday night to a Paris hospital.

As night broke into day, and Bakari waited for rescue, she grew weaker. One of her rescuers, Sgt. Said Abdilai, told Europe 1 radio that Bakari was too weak to grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so he jumped into the sea to get her, according to AP. He said rescuers gave the trembling girl warm water with sugar.

Though she did not speak to reporters herself, Bakari was glimpsed by an AP reporter though a hospital window with bruises on her face and a gauze bandage on her elbow. Said Mohammed, a nurse at El Mararouf hospital in Moroni, said she was doing well. Her uncle told AP that she had a fractured collarbone and that she had not been told yet that her mother was still missing.