Esscom: Hostages being held on southern Philippine isle
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SEMPORNA: The two foreign women abducted by Abu Sayyaf gunmen from Singamata Reef Resort here are alive and well and are being held on an island in southern Philippines.
Eastern Sabah Security Command (Esscom) director-general Datuk Mohammad Mentek said based on intelligence, the two – Chinese national Gao Huayun, 29, and Filipino resort worker Marcy Darawan – are “well”.
Esscom, he said, had identified the location where the two hostages are being held as well as the identity of the kidnappers.
One of the kidnappers is believed to be also involved in the abduction of a Taiwanese woman on Nov 15 in Pom Pom Island.
“The rest are said to be linked to the Sipadan island kidnapping (of 21 people) in 2000,” he said in a statement here yesterday.
“We believe that this particular ‘kidnap for ransom’ group is active and aggressive in the southern Philippines,” said Mohammad, adding that the local Filipino community might have provided information to the gunmen.
Mohammad said 15 of the resort’s foreign workers had been detained for not having valid documents.
The Immigration Department, he said, had been directed to carry out a full investigation and take action, including charging the resort operator, for employing foreigners without valid documents.
“We cannot compromise any more. We have given enough advice and reminders to all operators in the area yet so many refuse to adhere,” he said.
Mohammad said before Wednesday’s incident, security forces had managed to thwart some five boats that were attempting to get into Semporna on March 26.
“The presence of our forces in the area managed to stop four of the boats from entering Semporna waters,” he said.
He did not elaborate if the fifth boat was the one used in the raid at the Singamata resort.
In a related development, police are zeroing in on four employees of the resort said to have provided key information to the seven gunmen.
However, they have yet to establish if Marcy, 40, was targeted by the gunmen.
Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib confirmed that three women and a man aged between 20 and 50 have been arrested for questioning.
In the incident, Marcy was grabbed from her room first before Gao.
Semporna resort kidnap: Philippine troops hunt gunmen, believed to be in Simunul
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MANILA: Philippine soldiers have been deployed to a remote southern island where suspected Islamic militants are believed to have taken two female hostages seized from a resort in neighbouring Malaysia, the military said Friday.
The Abu Sayyaf, a small band of militants infamous for kidnappings for ransom, are the prime suspects in Wednesday's abductions of a Chinese tourist and a Filipina resort worker, armed forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala said.
He said seven gunmen aboard a white speedboat are believed to have taken the women from a diving resort in Malaysia's Sabah state across the maritime border to the remote Tawi-Tawi islands in the southern Philippines.
"What is important is to... block them (from fleeing) and find them," Zagala said, adding that an undisclosed number of naval forces, including marines, had been sent to one of the islands.
Zagala said the hostages are believed to have been taken to Simunul, a majority-Muslim town of about 35,000 people living on two tiny islands more than 1,000km from Manila.
Simunul is about 145km from the resort where the two were kidnapped, or about a day's boat ride.
Malaysian authorities identified the hostages as Gao Huayuan, 29, from Shanghai, and Filipina hotel employee Marcy Dayawan, 40.
Zagala said the kidnappers were believed to be affiliated with Abu Sayyaf "sub-commander" Murphy Ambang Ladjia, who was involved in a spectacular kidnapping of 21 people from another Sabah resort in 2000.
Twenty of those hostages - many of whom were Europeans and other foreign tourists - were released within five months, reportedly after hefty ransoms were paid. A final Filipino captive was held until 2003.
The Abu Sayyaf has only a few hundred gunmen but has been blamed for the worst terror attacks in Philippine history, including bombings and kidnappings that have often targeted foreigners or Christians.
It was set up in the 1990s, reportedly with seed money from Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Its militants have defied US-backed military campaigns against it by melding into and drawing support from Muslim communities in the southern Philippines who feel they have been persecuted for centuries by Christian rulers in Manila.
The group's strongholds are the Tawi-Tawis and the neighbouring Philippine islands of Sulu and Basilan.
Last year, suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen kidnapped a Taiwanese couple holidaying in a Sabah resort. The husband was killed during the abduction. His wife was found alive a month later on the main Sulu island of Jolo.
The Abu Sayyaf are believed to still be holding other foreign hostages, including two European bird-watchers abducted in the Tawi-Tawis in February 2012. – AFP
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