Katoucha

Body of former top model Katoucha Niane found in the River Seine

Police say body was found Thursday after going missing in January

A subsequent autopsy confirmed it as the model's

Police say the body showed no signs of foul play (it would only take a push)


PARIS, France (AP) -- The body of Katoucha Niane, one of the first African women to attain international stardom as a model and a vocal opponent of female genital mutilation, was found in the Seine River, police said Friday.

The Guinean-born model told The Associated Press in 1994 that she ran away to Europe at 17 aiming to be a model. Her big break came when Jules-Francois Crahay, then the designer at Lanvin, spotted her in a line-up. The label hired her as a fitting model. Her first catwalk modeling was for Thierry Mugler at the start of the 1980s.

After quitting the runway, she turned to speaking out actively against female circumcision, describing her own experience at age 9 in a book, "Katoucha, In My Flesh," which was published last year.

"I will never get the incomparable pain out of my head," she wrote in the book, which she dedicated to her three children.

Katoucha was the daughter of Djibril Tamsir Niane, an archaeologist and writer. She said that her father was initially disappointed that she didn't become "a professional intellectual, with a university degree," but later reconciled to her other successes.