Elderly French woman abducted by suspected pirates
Summary of story from The Independent, October 1, 2011
Suspected Somali pirates may have captured an elderly French woman from an exclusive resort island in northern Kenya.
A Western official said the French woman was kidnapped off Manda Island this morning, just across the channel from Lamu, where David Tebbutt was shot and his wife Judith kidnapped.
A Lamu resident, Muhidin Athman, says people near the scene of the kidnapping heard gunshots around 3am.
The Kenyan navy and police were chasing the suspected boat at sea, said Ambrose Munyasia, a top police official on the coast.
Mr Athman said the Frenchwoman, who owns a property on the island and lives there for half the year, gets around with the help of a wheelchair to get around or personal assistants.
Two kidnappings within a month have the potential to greatly harm the tourist trade in the area just before the busy holiday season.
As US and European navies have increased their patrols of the Indian Ocean and large ships have improved their on-board defences, pirates may be looking for easier targets.
“It’s profit-motived action. As we know the British couple we captured before paid huge ransoms, so sometimes these targets are a big gain that gives you more than ships,” a man who identified himself as a pirate commander named Bile Hussein told The Associated Press last week.