MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine police said Friday they have launched a search after gunmen allegedly kidnapped a U.S. citizen who was accused of protesting before being taken by speedboat away from a southern Philippine coastal city. He was shot in the leg during the attempt.
If the kidnapping-for-ransom case is confirmed, it would be the latest reminder of the long-running security problems that have plagued the southern Philippines, homeland of the Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic nation.
Police in Sibuco town in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte tried to pursue the suspected kidnappers and their victim, identified as 26-year-old Elliot O’Neil Eastman of Vermont, after a report of a kidnapping Thursday night.
“We confirm there was a report of an alleged kidnapping of a US citizen,” regional police said in a statement. Safe recovery of the victim.”
Police asked the public to immediately provide any information that could assist the ongoing investigation into the reported kidnapping.
Two police reports seen by The Associated Press said Sibuko resident Abdulmali Hamsiran Jala reported to police that four men dressed in black, armed with M16 rifles and calling themselves police officers, had forcibly taken Eastman. Gone were those who tried to escape.
Police reports said one of the gunmen shot Eastman in the leg and dragged him into a speedboat and then fled by sea to the south towards Basilan or Sulu provinces.
According to reports, policemen gave chase but failed to find the gunmen and Eastman and alerted other police and Philippine Marine units in the area.
Philippine authorities did not immediately provide details of Eastman’s background, but a man with a similar name posted photos and videos of himself on Facebook, saying he had married a Muslim woman in Sibuco.
The US Embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to questions about the alleged abduction.
The southern Philippines has abundant resources but has long struggled with extreme poverty and a series of insurgents and criminals.
A 2014 peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, has largely reduced widespread fighting in the south. Frequent military attacks have weakened smaller armed groups such as the notoriously violent Abu Sayyaf group over the years, leading to a significant reduction in kidnappings, bombings and other attacks.
The Abu Sayyaf group, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the Philippines, is an offshoot of the decades-long Muslim separatist unrest in the south and has carried out large-scale ransom attacks more than two decades ago. But kidnapping, beheading and bombing were carried out. Southern region.
They targeted American and other Western tourists and religious missionaries, most of whom were freed after ransom was paid. Some were killed, including an American who was beheaded in the island province of Basilan and an American missionary who was killed when Philippine military forces killed him and his wife in the town of Sirwai near Sibuco in 2002. Were trying to save in a rainforest.
The Philippines will hold midterm elections next year for more than 18,000 local, national and congressional positions, mostly provincial mayors and governors. In the traditionally volatile South, crimes including kidnapping and extortion have traditionally increased as rogue politicians try to raise money to boost their campaigns before elections in the past, but only in recent years, according to authorities. Only a few more isolated incidents have been reported.
