Freed doc 'on mercy mission'

2009-01-08 14:10

Tokyo - Keiko Akahane, the Japanese doctor freed after more than three months as a hostage in Somalia, had made it her goal to combat the health effects of war and poverty on children in east Africa, friends and associates said.

Akahane, 32, and a Dutch male nurse were working for French medical charity Medecins du Monde (MDM) in a drought-hit village across the border in Ethiopia when they were kidnapped on September 22.

Her associates say they believe she was inspired by her father Hiroshige, also a doctor and researcher in parasitology, who died in 2005.

"She represents the kind of talent we are trying to develop," Nagasaki University president Shigeru Katamine told reporters on Thursday after learning about her release the day before.

She has worked for five years as a paediatrician at hospitals and since April 2007 been a graduate student at the university's Institute of Tropical Medicine - Japan's only establishment that provides degrees in the field.

In April, Akahane started a doctor's course at the institute and joined a six-month programme with Paris-based MDM to provide treatment and medicine in eastern Ethiopia.

"She wanted to save children from dying of infectious diseases in developing countries," said Hideomi Fujiwara, director of Tsuchiura Kyodo General Hospital where Akahane worked before resuming her studies.

Akahane, a graduate of Toyama University's medical school, was particularly concerned with children infected with measles, norovirus and Aids passed from mother to child.

"She once noted that war and poverty had left medicine at a different level (in Ethiopia) and she wanted to go and help people there," Seiichi Watanabe, the hospital's paediatrics chief, said after her kidnapping.

"Because of the political uncertainty, I really wanted to stop her but she was firmly determined."

Akahane, who speaks English and Spanish, was one of about 30 Japanese sent around the world, mostly in Africa and Asia, by Medecins du Monde.

At least 60 doctors, nurses, health workers and coordinators from Japan's Red Cross Society are also working abroad.

The number of Japanese civilians who fell victim to kidnappings and terror attacks abroad has risen as the country has raised its international presence commensurate with its economic muscle.

It doubled to 20 in 2003-2007 from the preceding five years, and there were five cases last year, including Akahane, according to the foreign ministry.

A Somali armed group that snatched the pair demanded $3m in ransom, but MDM did not say whether any money was paid for their freedom.

In late October she told a Japanese network by telephone: "Mentally, I have felt down at times but I am holding up through hope."

"To be honest, I want to go back to Japan."

Her family spoke earlier on Thursday of their relief at her release, although they said they would not quite believe it until there saw her in person.

- AFP