By Caroline Mango
MOMBASA, Kenya (Reuters) - Kenyan coastguards were locked in a high-seas standoff Saturday with gunmen holding a disabled French woman hostage and the abductors fired warning shots in the air, a government minister said.
The elderly victim's Kenyan boyfriend, John Lepapa, said six masked gunmen armed with assault rifles stormed their private beach house on Manda island under the cover of darkness, first rounding up the staff who they marched at gun-point to the main living quarters.
In what is the second abduction of a foreign visitor in three weeks, the armed gang then ordered the 66-year-old French woman, her boyfriend and the house-helps to lie face to the floor, before one of the gunmen grabbed the wheelchair-bound woman and carried her to an awaiting boat.
Tourism Minister Najib Balala told Reuters the tense face-off was taking place near the border with Somalia and the bandits were firing into the air in an attempt to scare off the ships and a circling aircraft.
"Two boats of the Kenyan coastguard have surrounded the boat on which the gunmen and woman are," Balala said.
"Our fear is if we do drown the boat we will drown the woman," he said, adding that the woman was disabled.
Analysts and diplomats in the region warned earlier in the year that Somali pirates were likely to turn softer targets, such as tourists in Kenya, in response to much more robust defence of merchant vessels by private security guards.
The attacks risk dealing a hammer blow to Kenyan tourism which was recovering from violence which followed a December 2007 presidential election and the lingering effects of the global financial crisis.
Lepapa, 39, and a close associate of the couple said the hostage had been battling cancer and was without much-needed medication.
TARGETED ATTACK
Lepapa told Reuters he had his partner had returned two days earlier from France, where they spend part of the year. The raid appeared well planned, he said.
"All they were saying was 'where is the foreigner, where is the foreigner'," he said, adding that he had been questioned by counter-terrorism police several hours after the attack.
"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."
This latest kidnapping on the Lamu archipelago by gunmen with links to Somalia has heightened fears that organised criminal networks across the border are increasing their reach.
France said it was assisting the Kenyan authorities.
"I can confirm that she was kidnapped by gunmen in all likelihood from Somalia," said French Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero. "Naturally, we are doing everything with the Kenyan authorities to find our compatriot."
Before Saturday's kidnapping, France had eight nationals held captive overseas, among them three aid workers in Yemen, four citizens in the Sahel region and one other in Somalia.
John Steed, a military adviser to the United Nations in Nairobi, described the situation as a "hostage rescue" scenario. Since the kidnappers were cornered on a small boat, he said, cool judgement was required rather than special forces.
"In any hostage rescue there's an element of risk. But given it's a small boat with only six to nine gunmen on board, they have to surrender. So it's a question of wearing them down," Steed said.
TOURISM TO TAKE A BEATING?
In early September, gunmen attacked British tourists at a camp resort a short speedboat ride away from Lamu, killing the man and kidnapping his wife.
Somali pirates said she was being held in Somalia. The al Qaeda-affiliated al Shabaab militant group controls large chunks of the lawless country's south and central regions.
The U.N.'s special envoy to Somalia, Augustine Mahiga, warned this week of a growing link between Somalia's pirates and militants.
The violent raid will intensify pressure on Kenya to beef up security along its country's porous frontier with Somalia and in the open waters off the Horn of Africa country.
Saturday's kidnapping took place on Manda island, across a narrow water channel from Lamu, one of the pearls of the east African country's tourism sector where tourists snorkel and bask in the sun and dhows meander lazily down the Indian Ocean.
Already under threat from government's plans to build a world-class $23 billion port nearby, hotel and restaurant operators fear mounting insecurity will ruin tourism.
"If this goes on, we might be forced to close the hotel. Maybe next time they will attack this side of the island," said Gabriel Kombe, assistant manager at Lamu's Sunsail Hotel, adding that bookings had already been cancelled after the kidnapping of Judith Tebbutt on September 11.
"The government needs to put more security on the border and in the waters," he said.
A record number tourists visited Kenya in the first six months of 2011 and government officials had hoped east Africa's biggest economy was on track to trump record earnings in 2010.
(Additional reporting Richard Lough and Yara Bayoumy in Nairobi and John Irish in Paris; writing by Richard Lough; editing by David Clarke and Philippa Fletcher)
