A disabled Frenchwoman from a Kenyan tourist resort, was kidnapped by Somali gunmen on Saturday and taken across the border following a shootout with the Kenyan navy, said officials.

Kenya at 3:30 am (0030 GMT) by "10 heavily armed Somali bandits," a Kenyan government statement said, adding they were "suspected" members of Somalia's Shebab Islamist rebel group.

It was the second attack on foreigners in one month in this part of Kenya near the border with wartorn Somalia.

Kenyan "security forces swung into immediate action and pursued the abductors" making their way to the town of Ras Kamboni in southern Somalia by speed boat, the statement said.

Nairobi dispatched a helicopter and coastguard vessels which caught up with and surrounded the fleeing gunmen.

"In the ensuing shoot-out between the abductors and the Kenya Navy, several of the abductors were injured but managed to enter" Ras Kamboni, said the statement which offered no details on the abducted woman's condition.

Rebels
Shebab rebels control large swathes of territory in southern Somalia, but Ras Kamboni, a former rebel bastion near the Kenyan border, is not currently under the control of any single group, with several gangs holding sway.

Somalia's weak, Western-backed government is still largely confined to the capital, Mogadishu.

The Kenyan government said in a statement Saturday that "every effort is being made to rescue the victim", while Tourism Minister Najib Balala promised security will be beefed up.

The woman, identified by local sources as Marie Dedieu, was taken from her home on Manda island, the government said, separated by an idyllic lagoon from the celebrity-packed, luxury resort isle of Lamu.

"We fear for her health," French foreign affairs spokesman Bernard Valero said in Paris, adding the woman who was retired and had been living in Kenya for about 15 years, was on a medical regimen when abducted.

Shooting
Her companion, John Lepapa, a 39-year-old Kenyan who was present during the attack, said there were six assailants on land and four waiting in the boat, and "they all had guns".

"He shoot at me when he passed this window," he recounted.

Zeniab Anthony, her maid, said she was sleeping in the servants' quarters when she got up to go to the toilet and "when I reached the doorstep, I saw a man with a gun. I started screaming and five more came in"
She and another maid were then taken to the main house, Anthony said.

Locals said the kidnap victim was well known in the area, where she spends much of the year. The kidnappers did not take her wheelchair with them.

Lamu, with its immaculate white sand beaches on the Indian Ocean, is one of Kenya's most prized tourist venues despite its proximity to war-torn Somalia.

Source: AFP