Katoucha Niane, 47, confirmed dead
Katoucha Niane, the model who graced Yves Saint Laurent’s campaigns in the late 1980s, has been confirmed as the body recovered Thursday in the Seine. She had been reported missing on February 1. French police officers are treating her death as accidental: it was believed that she returned to her houseboat drunk and fell in the river.
  A post mortem showed that Niane, 47, had drowned ‘due to rapid submersion without any trace of violence’.
  Niane was a campaigner against female genital mutilation, which she herself had suffered aged nine in her native Guinea.
  Prior to the YSL campaign, Niane had modelled for Lanvin, Thierry Mugler, Christian Lacroix and Paco Rabanne.—Lucire staff
One of the other writers over at Highbrid Nation wrote about Katoucha Niane and the disappearing of other models working on campaigns to stop genital mutilation. He actually think black magic may be involved. Yeh I know, that theory is a bit out there but I’ve heard stranger things.
Comment by Mike Belgrove — March 10, 2008 @ 15.50