A Frenchwoman kidnapped from her beach house on Kenya’s northern coast by Somalian gunmen nearly three weeks ago has died, the French government said on Wednesday.
The French authorities said they heard Marie Dedieu, 66, had died via intelligence officers dispatched by Paris to the region to seek her release. However, they said they had no information as to when she died or in what circumstances.
“Mrs Dedieu’s state of health, uncertainty over the conditions of her detention and the fact that the kidnappers probably refused to give her the medication that we sent her lead us to believe that this tragic outcome is unfortunately the most likely,” the foreign ministry statement said.
Dedieu used a wheelchair, had undergone two years of cancer treatment and also had heart problems for which she needed four-hourly medication.
“It’s a barbaric, violent act of utter brutality,” French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said.
Dedieu, a former journalist, had been left quadriplegic by a car accident in her early 30s, but still spent eight months of the year in the Lamu region.
On Wednesday, the French foreign office demanded “the return of our compatriot’s remains without delay and without conditions.”
It re-stated the indignation of the French government in the face of “the total absence of humanity and the cruelty the kidnappers have shown.”
“We want them identified and brought to justice,” the ministry said, adding that the authorities wished to convey their “profound sadness” to Dedieu’s family.
Dedieu was a leading figure in the French feminist movement in the 1970s. Since the mid-90s, she lived in a rented house on Manda Island in the Lamu archipelago, a popular tourist destination, for several months a year.
She had a Kenyan partner, and was well known and liked by locals as well as foreigners working in the hospitality industry.
If the kidnappers thought they had snatched a wealthy foreigner, they must have been disappointed. She lived in a modest single-story thatched home on a small parcel of land on the beach.
A group of armed men kidnapped her before dawn on Oct. 1, carrying her to a waiting speedboat before heading up the coast to Somalia. The alarm was quickly raised, and a private plane belonging to a resort owner tracked the gunmen from the air.
However, the Kenyan Navy, which has a base in Lamu, was slow to respond and the kidnappers escaped to Somalia.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not