(Newser)
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The wheelchair-bound French tourist kidnapped by Somali gunmen earlier this month died in captivity, France said today. Marie Dedieu, 66, was a quadriplegic and required medication every six hours. Though the French government attempted to send her prescriptions to her and well-wishers offered to bring the medicine to where she was being held, her captors refused to give it to her, the Telegraph reports. Dedieu, a well-known feminist in the 1970s and a retired editor, was abducted from the holiday home in Kenya where she spent six months of the year.
“This was an act of unqualified barbarism, violence, and brutality," the French foreign minister says. “We did everything possible to try to obtain her release, we tried to send medication by numerous different channels and apparently these savages could not care less.” Kenyan forces invaded Somalia this week in response to this and other kidnappings.
