Model Waris Dirie reported missing*Update* Found Safe
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Waris Dirie, a former model who has campaigned against female genital mutilation and written an international best-seller about her experiences, is missing, her manager said Friday.
ADVERTISEMENT
Dirie, 43, has not been seen since early Wednesday when police saw her getting into a taxi in Brussels after a mix-up over a hotel room, manager Walter Lutschinger said in a telephone interview.
"We are really very scared," said Lutschinger, who has been her manager for seven years.
Dirie — who was born in Somalia and now lives in Vienna, Austria — gained international fame as a model posing in Chanel ads and acting in a James Bond film before launching her campaign against female genital mutilation in 1996.
She recounted her own experiences of suffering genital mutilation as a child in the book "Desert Flower," which became an international best-seller.
Dirie was due to speak to two conferences on women's rights organized by the European Union in Brussels this week, including one Thursday attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Dirie's disappearance comes a week after French police said they'd found the body of another former model of African origin who had campaigned against female genital mutilation.
Guinean-born Katoucha Niane's body was found floating in the Seine River in Paris. French police said an autopsy showed no signs of foul play, pointing to the possibility that the 47-year-old Niane may have fallen accidentally into the river.
Lutschinger said Dirie had been involved in an altercation in a hotel reception after a taxi driver had taken her to the wrong branch of the Sofitel hotel chain after a visit to a night club. The police were called and drove Dirie around Brussels looking for the correct hotel, after she had she apparently forgotten where she was staying.
At one hotel, while staff and police were checking for her name on a computer, Dirie walked out and climbed into a taxi that drove away, Lutschinger said police told him.
He said hotel staff told him Dirie had said she was going to buy cigarettes before getting into the vehicle.
Lutschinger said he thought she was carrying little money and no identification documents or cell phone when she vanished.
EU officials said they had expressed concern when she did not show up Thursday at the conference and had been in touch with the police, but had not had any news of Dirie's whereabouts.
Dirie's description of how she underwent genital mutilation without anesthesia as a child shocked those who knew her from glossy fashion magazine covers, Chanel perfume ads and her role in "The Living Daylights," a 1987 James Bond film.
She chronicled her own experience in a best-selling autobiography, "Desert Flower," and three sequels, "Desert Dawn," "Desert Children" and "Nomad's Daughter," and served as a U.N. goodwill ambassador to fight the practice.
"There are millions of children — young, hopeless, desperate — who need help, a voice, somebody, somewhere," she told The Associated Press in a 2005 interview.
The U.N. office in Brussels said they had no information about where she might be.
Dirie was due to travel to the Netherlands to receive an award for her campaigning Friday in the town of Kerkrade.
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) — Authorities say Waris Dirie, the Somali-born model who launched a worldwide campaign against female genital mutilation, has been found.
A spokeswoman for the prosecutor's office says Dirie was located on Friday in central Brussels, hours after police announced a nationwide search for her.
The spokeswoman says Dirie is being questioned by police about the disappearance and appears to be in good health.
Dirie had last been seen getting into a cab after a mix-up over a hotel early Wednesday.
Oh that is great news!!! But I'm very curious to know what happened!
That's weird story, it really seems she completly lost her head...
There is today in a belgian newspaper interview of the guy with who she was when police found her...
look at the guy... he is a window cleaner, and he met her in some kind of dirty cafe where he use to go everyday after his work, and it was the second evening he saw her there, so not shy, he proposed her a drink, she accepted and they drank all evening in that bar, the guy had absolutky no idea who was that girl...
source: dh.be
he proposed her to take her at his home for the night, and she said, yes on the way home, they stoped to supermarket to buy things to eat (and to drink...) at home, and just in going out of the supermarket, they have been stoped by the police.
Funny thing it is that, the guy who is now "clean" has been in jail 10 years ago, so when police checked his name, he has been suspected of bad stuff and spent 10 hours at the police to explain the story, who has been confimed by the cafe owner
he is a window cleaner, and he met her in some kind of dirty cafe where he use to go everyday after his work, and it was the second evening he saw her there, so not shy, he proposed her a drink, she accepted and they drank all evening in that bar, the guy had absolutky no idea who was that girl...
on the way home, they stoped to supermarket to buy things to eat (and to drink...) at home, and just in going out of the supermarket, they have been stoped by the police.
Linear Mode
