“The contacts with whom we were working to secure the release of Marie Dedieu have told us of her death,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Bernard Valero said in a statement.

The 66-year-old woman, who was recovering from cancer and needed daily medication, was seized in the early hours of Oct. 1 from a private house on the island of Manda on Kenya’s northern coast.

Valero added that Paris could not confirm the date or the circumstances of her death but said the most likely cause of death was that the kidnappers not given her the medication sent by the French government via intermediaries.

“France is shocked at the total absence of humanity and the cruelty that the kidnappers have shown with regard to our compatriot, and we want them to be identified and face justice,” Valero said, demanding that her body be handed to authorities.

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.

Manda island in Kenya’s Lamu archipelago is one of the pearls of the country’s tourism sector. Gunmen also kidnapped a British tourist from the archipelago in September after killing her husband.

Kenyan forces launched a major incursion into Somalia this week after two Spanish aid workers were kidnapped from Kenya near the Somali border.

France has eight hostages still held overseas including one in Somalia, four in North Africa’s Sahel belt and three in Yemen.