Model who went missing was lost, say prosecutors

BRUSSELS – Somali-born model and human rights campaigner Waris Dirie, found alive after being missing for two days in Brussels, was simply lost in the city, prosecutors said on Saturday.

“She said that she had roamed Brussels for those two and a half days and that she stayed in hotel lobbies, not having money on her to allow her to pay for the hotel,” prosecutors’ spokesman Jean-Michel Meilleur said. “She said that she had not eaten during those three days,” he told public broadcaster RTBF.Following questioning by police after she was found Friday, Dirie, a UN ambassador in the campaign against female genital mutilation, said she “had not disappeared”.”I never would have imagined causing all this,” she said of the attention given to her situation.She thanked Belgians for their “kindness”.The 43-year-old naturalised Austrian was reported missing in the early hours of Wednesday after getting into a taxi outside a hotel in the Belgian capital.A spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office said she had been found in Brussels on Friday afternoon.Dirie disappeared after she had become lost in the Belgian capital and had been helped by police, who mistakenly took her to a hotel from the same chain as the one she was staying in but at which she had no reservation, an Austrian foreign ministry spokesman said in Vienna.Dirie had been expected in Kerkrade, the Netherlands, on Friday to receive the Euriade Foundation prize.She was also due to take part in a conference in Brussels on Saturday, International Women’s Day, on female circumcision.Nampa-AFP”She said that she had not eaten during those three days,” he told public broadcaster RTBF.Following questioning by police after she was found Friday, Dirie, a UN ambassador in the campaign against female genital mutilation, said she “had not disappeared”.”I never would have imagined causing all this,” she said of the attention given to her situation.She thanked Belgians for their “kindness”.The 43-year-old naturalised Austrian was reported missing in the early hours of Wednesday after getting into a taxi outside a hotel in the Belgian capital.A spokesman for the local prosecutor’s office said she had been found in Brussels on Friday afternoon.Dirie disappeared after she had become lost in the Belgian capital and had been helped by police, who mistakenly took her to a hotel from the same chain as the one she was staying in but at which she had no reservation, an Austrian foreign ministry spokesman said in Vienna.Dirie had been expected in Kerkrade, the Netherlands, on Friday to receive the Euriade Foundation prize.She was also due to take part in a conference in Brussels on Saturday, International Women’s Day, on female circumcision.Nampa-AFP