Kenyan coastguards are said to have surrounded a pirate boat where kidnappers are holding an elderly French woman hostage after snatching her from her beach home.

A group of nine armed men attacked the property near Lamu in the middle of the night after arriving by speedboat. Staff and neighbours reported shots being fired and said the gunmen had burst into the house shouting: "Take us to Maman".

It is the second violent abduction of a foreigner in three weeks.

In a similar attack on 11 September, gunman attacked a British couple in their 50s on holiday north of Lamu.

The publishing executive David Tebbutt, from Bishop's Stortford, was killed and his wife Judith is being held hostage, possibly in Somalia.

The Kenyan tourism minister, Najib Balala, said the army, police and coastguards had located the boat where the French woman was being held and had surrounded it.

"Two coastguard vessels have encircled the boat where there are armed men and a woman," Balala told Reuters.

The local police chief, Adoli Aggrey, added: "We have deployed a contingent in the region. The army is already there and a police helicopter is in the air."