The kidnappers of a French woman who died while in Somalia want to sell her body back to French authorities, according to reports.
Wheelchair-bound and cancer-stricken Marie Dedieu, 66, died on Wednesday morning after she was kidnapped earlier this month from her Kenyan summer home. It is believed that al-Shabab militants were responsible for her abduction.
Defense Minister Gerard Longuet, in an interview with i-Tele TV, said the kidnappers are attempting to sell her body and “are people who deserve scorn.”
Dedieu likely died because she was not given her medication, Longuet said on Wednesday. He added that the French government attempted to transfer the drugs to her kidnappers, but they refused.
“Letting her get blood poisoning, which is what she probably died of, and then trying to sell her body (shows) that these people only deserve contempt,” Longuet added, according to a translation from Reuters.
Two Spanish Medecins Sans Frontieres aid workers were also kidnapped from Kenya and taken back to Somalia. Kenya suspects that al-Shabab, a group that has ties to al-Qaeda, is responsible.
Earlier this week, Kenya deployed its military in southern Somalia in an attempt to ferret out al-Shabab militants.
