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Kidnapped French woman running out of time, say friends

Friends of a paraplegic French woman kidnapped this weekend on a Kenyan island say they believe her captors had local help. And they are worried that her life may be in danger because she needs medicine every day and cannot move around on her own. 

Reuters/Handout
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Kenyan police questioned an employee of Marie Dedieu on Monday over her kidnapping  from her home on Manda Island, in the resort archipelago of Lamu.

A security official said Kenya was sending envoys to Somalia to establish contacts to secure Dedieu’s release, but it could take time.

This is time that Dedieu does not have, according to Alain Lardet, a close friend of hers who splits his time between France and Kenya.

He says he’s very worried about Dedieu’s health. She needs to take heart medicine every day, and she’s paraplegic, so cannot move around on her own.

When her kidnappers grabbed her they left her wheelchair behind.

Daudet saw Dedieu just before she ended a visit to France last week.

"She did not seem worried," he told RFI. "She just remarked that her home might be vulnerable to this kind of kidnapping. She remarked on this after the kidnapping of the English woman and the assassination of her husband in the region."

But, he adds, she felt so much at home on Manda that she did not take any security precautions.

And he believes that her captors must have had inside help.

"The kidnappers must have had local information. They must have been warned of her arrival. They came looking for a European."

A British tourist to Lamu was kidnapped in September by a gang who killed her husband. She is believed to have been sold to pirates who are now holding her in central Somalia.

"We are completely devastated," says Daudet. "The only thing we can do is alert people
about her health condition, and insist on the urgency of her being released - hoping it’s not already too late."

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