GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The rescue of a French woman kidnapped last week in Kenya failed Saturday 1 October and 2 Kenyan Navy officers died in the attempt.
In the Philippines, there was good news as Filipino-American Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann was released early Monday 3 October after two months. Abu-Sayyaf rebels still hold her 14-year-old son and her 19-year-old nephew. Zamboanga Mayor Celso Lobregat, who is credited by US authorities with playing a key role in her release, told local media there was no talk of ransom. Yeatts Lunsmann was born in the Philippines but adopted by a family in the US, where she was raised. She works as a veterinarian in Virginia, where she and her husband and son live.
French woman Marie Dedieu, 66, who is disabled, was kidnapped from her Mandu Island cottage and Kenyan authorities believe she is now in Somalia, taken there by al Shabaab militia members. A rescue attempt at sea by the Kenya Navy failed. Some of the naval officers were in a fishing boat which capsized in an accident and two of them remain lost at sea.
Dedieu’s kidnapping comes less than a month after two British citizens, David Tebbutt and his wife Judith were kidnapped in Kiwayu, near Lamu. He was killed and she was taken to Somalia by the same militia group, authorities say.
Links to other sites: BBC, MSNBC (family photo), Sun Star, Philippines, The Nation, Kenya
Fifteen schoolchildren aged between three and 10 years of age kidnapped while on their way to school by bus three days ago have been released unharmed from a forest hideout in Abia state. They were taken to Aba city 1 October, and are to be reunited with their families. The kidnappers initially demanded $130,000. The ransom dropped to $2,600. It is not known whether a ransom was paid.
The kidnapping shocked Nigerians, used to a low-level insurgency with many kidnappings in the Niger river delta. Three Frenchmen were abducted from a drilling ship last week. Some believe the spate of kidnappings is politically motivated.
Links to other sites: Al-Jazeera, AllAfrica, BBC, Vanguard
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – John Solecki, the head of the UNHCR office in Quetta, Pakistan, taken hostage in January 2009, has been released by his kidnappers some 50 km south of Quetta, in Khadkhutcha, Balochistan. Solecki, 49, was abducted 2 February as he and his UN refugee agency driver Syed Hashim drove to work. Hashim was killed.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Two international organizations based in Geneva have issued urgent appeals to the captors of their employees to release them unharmed. Rebels in the Philippines, who are holding three ICRC (International Red Cross) employees, including Swiss Andreas Notter, are threatening to decapitate one of them if the army does not leave the area where they are held. Tuesday morning the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) told the kidnappers of John Solecki in Pakstan that they are entirely responsible for his health, expressing concern over the lack of news in the past two weeks.
