In this image made from a militant video posted on YouTube on Monday, Frenchwoman Isabelle Prime, who was kidnapped in February while working for a consultancy firm with ties to the World Bank, addresses the French president, in Yemen. — AP PARIS — France authenticated on Monday a video that shows a Frenchwoman taken hostage in Yemen appealing to President Francois Hollande to help her and it said it was doing all it could to secure her release. French Foreign Ministry spokesman Romain Nadal said his government has verified the authenticity of the video and that it was filmed in April. Nadal said officials from the ministry will meet with the Prime family on Tuesday. 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 in English. “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. “I tried to kill myself several times because I know you will not cooperate and I totally understand.” Prime and her Yemeni translator Shereen Makawi were abducted by gunmen in the capital 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. There has been no public claim of responsibility for her abduction so far. The video first appeared on YouTube on May 4. “It is a video in which Isabelle Prime appears. All the relevant state services are mobilized to free our compatriot,” the French foreign ministry said on Monday without elaborating. — Agencies
