My current event post this week will be about Marie Dedieu. The sixty-six year old woman was kidnapped from her beach front home in Kenya on October 1st. She was staying there with her boyfriend John Lepapa. She was handicapped and suffered from cancer as well as heart disease. Because of her condition, Dedieu was required to take medication for her ailments daily. When she was taken from her beach front home, she was deprived of the necessary medication she needed to live.
The French government was able to contact al-Shabab, the armed gang that abducted Marie Dedieu. The government tried to reason with the group and sent the medication that Dedieu needed to live. However, the government's contact with al-Shabab reported that she had died. The French feel that the only possible answer as to how she died was because she was not given her medication.
"'My girlfriend pleaded with them and told them to take whatever they wanted from the house, including the money and to spare her life," said Lepapa. "But they would not listen.'"
The French government has characterized the treatment of Dedieu under the care of her kidnappers as unqualified barbarism. This incident has caused Kenya's tourism industry to go down, as tourists feel insecure because of the kidnapping of Marie Dedieu.
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