Kenya travel warning after abduction of second tourist

The Foreign Office issued its warning on Saturday night after a French woman was kidnapped earlier yesterday from a beach resort in the Lamu archipelago, northern Kenya, by 10 heavily armed Somali militants.

On September 11, Briton David Tebbutt, 58, was killed and his wife Judith, 56, abducted by armed gunmen from a resort near the popular tourist town of Lamu.

Security forces yesterday tracked down and surrounded the pirate boat believed to be carrying the French hostage, identified as Marie Dedieu by the Kenyan government.

In a statement, the FCO said: “We advise against all but essential travel to coastal areas within 150km of the Somali border, following two attacks by armed gangs in small boats against beach resorts in the Lamu area on 11 September and 1 October 2011.

“This advice will be kept under review. Both attacks were on beachfront properties, with two Westerners kidnapped and one murdered.

“Beachfront accommodation in that area and boats off the coast are vulnerable.”

The Tebbutts, from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, were the only guests at the Kiwayu Safari Village, 25 miles from the Kenya-Somalia border.

The FCO said its travel advice is “under constant review in the light of the situation on the ground”.

“Travel advice is based on objective assessments of the risk to British nationals, whose safety is our main concern,” said the statement.

Full travel advice for Kenya can be found on the Foreign Office website.

Foreign Secretary William Hague told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme: “Clearly, we are worried about the situation there. There is the case of Mrs Tebbutt that we are trying to deal with as best we can.

“But now we are seeing possibly copycat kidnappings taking place. That is very alarming. That’s why we have said within 150km of the Somali border, people have to be very conscious of that.

“It is sad, and we are working with the Kenyan authorities and urging them to improve security in any way they can.”

The tactics of targeting tourists on land at Kenyan resorts appears to be a change of tactics from Somalian pirates, who have previously focused their activities on vessels sailing off the coast.

Many targets have previously been commercial vessels but private sailors, including British couple Rachel and Paul Chandler, have also been targeted and held hostage and pirates have also attempted to raid at least one cruise ship in the area.

The aim has been to get ransom payments in exchange for the prisoners.