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Somali pirates surrounded at sea after kidnapping disabled woman from Kenyan holiday home
Topic Started: October 1 2011, 05:16 PM (123 Views)
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Somali pirates surrounded at sea after kidnapping disabled woman from Kenyan holiday home



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Manda island, part of the Lamu archipelago on Kenya's Indian Ocean coast Photo: EPA/DAI KUROKAWA


Somali pirates surrounded at sea after kidnapping disabled woman from Kenyan holiday home
A gang of up to a dozen suspected Somali pirates are in an armed standoff with Kenyan coastguards after kidnapping a disabled Frenchwoman from her Kenyan holiday home.
They seized the woman, believed to be in her mid-sixties, close to the area where British tourist Judith Tebbutt was seized three weeks ago.

Two speedboats landed on the beach at Manda Island, in the Lamu archipelago on Kenya’s northern Indian Ocean coast, a little after 3am and six of the men forced their way into the woman’s house.

Firing into the air, they stormed into the living area, shooting at guards and shepherding staff into a separate room, all the while shouting, “where is the foreigner, where is the foreigner”, said Zeinab Anthony, 24, a maid at the house.

“I refused to show them to the lady’s bedroom and they hit my foot with the butt of their rifle,” she said. “I believe that they were from Somalia.”

The woman was dragged down the beach without her wheelchair and put into a boat, which sped north towards Somalia.
By mid-afternoon, Kenyan forces had found the boat with the gang and the Frenchwoman still on board, said Najib Balala, Kenya’s tourism minister.

Coast Guard speedboats had given chase and were assisted from the air at first light by an Army helicopter which later spotted the kidnappers more than halfway to the Somali border.

They had yet to make any offensive move against the boat for fear of sinking it and leaving the woman in the sea, where she would be unable to swim.

“There is still a stand-off between the Kenyan coastguards and the gunmen,” Mr Balala said.

“An army helicopter is also hovering over the vessel and we are continually monitoring the situation. We will continue giving you an update as the situation unfolds.”

George Lepapa ole Moiyio, the woman’s Kenyan partner, earlier told how the men tried to shoot him as he ran to fetch help. “I escaped through the window and ran to the next-door hotel,” he said.

“There were six men who attacked me and the lady in the house and there were at least four others waiting with the boats which had docked on the beach infront of our house.”

The woman was dragged down the beach, thrown over the shoulders of one kidnapper and put into one of the speedboats, a nightwatchman who witnessed the attack said.

“She was screaming and trying to fight, but they were too strong for her,” he said.

The woman is a regular visitor to Lamu and rented a cottage there for at least four months every year for the past 15 years. It is understood she is a Kenyan resident, according to one source whose family owns a house close to where she stays.

“She can’t walk, she is diabetic and needs medicine all the time, how can she survive this? She can’t,” he said.

Witnesses said that the woman’s wheelchair was still at the house after she was taken away towards Somalia.

The attack is the second in less than a month targeting foreigners staying in luxury accommodation on the string of islands which make up the archipelago, which lies 60 miles south of the border with Somalia.

Gunmen kidnapped Mrs Tebbutt, a 56-year-old social worker from Bishop’s Stortford, after they shot dead her husband, David, during a midnight raid on a beachfront lodge 30 miles north of where yesterday’s attack took place.

She was taken to Somalia by boat and then transferred onland. She is now understood to be in the hands of pirates in the same area where Paul and Rachel Chandler, British yachtsmen kidnapped in the Seychelles in 2009, were held.

No ransom demand has yet publicly been made.

The two kidnappings will hit Kenya’s coastal tourism hard, after it had rebounded after two months of violence following the 2007 presidential election which left 1,100 people dead.

Lamu is seen as one of the country’s more exclusive destinations, and celebrities including Princess Caroline of Monaco, Jude Law and X-Files actress Gillian Anderson have regularly been spotted on the island’s 12 mile beach.

“It is a very, very sad day for us, there will be no business now,” said Muhidin Athman, who owns a guesthouse in Shela, a small village popular with well-heeled foreign tourists.

“I cannot understand why people would do this. And I cannot understand how the Kenyan police have let this happen so soon after the British lady was taken.”

Mrs Tebbutt was kidnapped from Kiwayu Safari Village, which lies 30 miles through mangrove channels to the north of Lamu and Manda Islands.

Security analysts, diplomats and tour agents had all thought that the more visited areas of the islands would be seen as too busy and well-protected for pirates or armed robbers to attack.

The French government has already revised its travel advice for Kenya, warning its citizens against visiting Lamu.
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Somali kidnappers escape shootout at sea


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The Kenyan beach house where Somali pirates struck late at night, dragging Marie Dedieu, a disabled Frenchwoman, to their speedboat and then escaping. Photo: AFP


A DISABLED Frenchwoman in her 60s was being held prisoner in Somalia last night after a shootout at sea failed to stop pirates who seized her from her Kenyan holiday home.

Kenya's coast guard and armed forces chased Marie Dedieu and her abductors in an open boat speeding towards the Somali border, not far from the spot where pirates seized a British tourist last month.

There are concerns she has been taken hostage by militants from the al-Shabab militia, which is linked to al-Qaeda, according to the Internal Security Ministry
Despite gunfire injuring several of the gang, Kenyan officials admitted the rescue failed as the kidnappers reached Somali waters.

A source at France's Defence Ministry said its forces in Djibouti, further up the coast, and its troops with the international anti-piracy force, were involved in the search for Ms Dedieu, 66.

Ms Dedieu, who uses a wheelchair, is a retired journalist who spends more than half of the year at her house on the island of Manda, off the northern stretch of Kenya's coast.

She is well known in the area, which is popular with figures such as the actors Jude Law, Sienna Miller and Gillian Anderson. Princess Caroline of Monaco also owns property there.

At least 10 gunmen landed in two small speedboats on Manda's main beach at 3am on Saturday. Six stormed into the thatch-walled house, shouting, ''where is the foreigner?''

Zeinab Anthony, 24, a maid, said: ''I refused to show them to the lady's bedroom and they hit my foot with the butt of their rifle.'' George Lepapa ole Moiyio, Ms Dedieu's 39-year-old Kenyan partner, said the men tried to shoot him as he ran for help. ''I escaped through the window and ran to the next-door hotel,'' he said.

Ms Dedieu was dragged down the beach and thrown into a boat. The gang did not carry her wheelchair with them.

Speedboats from the coastguard and navy gave chase, with help from an army helicopter that spotted the kidnappers.

Despite the shootout, the gang reached Ras Kamboni, a town just over the border in Somalia. Last month, gunmen kidnapped Judith Tebbutt, a British social worker, after killing her husband in a night raid on a beach lodge. She is believed to be a captive of a group allied to al-Shabab.

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