Local Editor

France authenticated on Monday a recent video that shows a Frenchwoman taken hostage in Yemen appealing to France’s President Francois Hollande and Yemen’s exiled president Yemen’s Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi to help her.

The video shows Isabelle Prime, a consultant for Yemen’s Social Fund for Development, crouching on sand and in distress. Dressed in black, she makes her appeal to Hollande and Yemen’s Abd Rabo Mansour Hadi in English.

"Mr Hollande and Mr Hadi, my name is Isabelle, I’ve been kidnapped 10 weeks ago in Yemen, in Sanaa. Please bring me to France fast because I’m really, really tired", she said in the video. 

"I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand", she further added. 

There has been no public claim of responsibility for Prime’s abduction so far. The video first appeared on YouTube on May 4.

France’s foreign ministry said on Monday without elaborating: "It is a video in which Isabelle Prime appears. All the relevant state services are mobilized to free our compatriot".

Prime and her Yemeni translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in Yemen’s capital city, Sanaa, in February while the pair were on their way to work. Yemeni tribal sources said in March that Prime would be released, but only Makawi was freed.