Four people, including two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian resort manager, and a Filipino woman, have been targeted and kidnapped by unidentified gunmen from a popular resort island in the southern Philippines, the army said on Tuesday.
The military has now set up a naval blockade in an attempt to intercept the victims and prevent them being taken ashore other islands with a strong militant presence, where tourists have previously been kept as hostages for ransom.
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Philippines army Captain Alberto Caber said the four were taken at gunpoint during a raid late on Monday night on the Oceanview resort on Samal island, near Davao City, the largest city on Mindanao island in the restive southern Philippines.
“Four people were taken but we do not know what group was behind the attack,” Caber told reporters. He said there were about 30 foreign tourists at the resort at the time of the raid. “It appeared the foreigners were the targets, they were not taken at random,” he said.
‘Two Japanese tourists tried to intervene but failed’
Caber said the abducted foreigners were identified as John Ridsdel and Robert Hall from Canada and Kjartan Sekkingstad, the Norwegian manager of the resort. The Filipino woman was not identified, but it has been reported that she is the partner of one of the Canadian men.
Military and police officials were surprised by the latest attack, which came as a reminder of volatile security in the south despite recent peace initiatives with Islamist rebels.
The Davao region has been relatively peaceful for more than a decade. In 2014, a peace agreement with the largest Muslim rebel group in the south, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, ended 45 years of conflict that had killed about 120,000 people and displaced 2 million.
Nicolas Doire, a spokesman for Canada’s foreign ministry in Ottawa, said they were aware of the kidnapping but declined to comment or release information that “may compromise ongoing efforts and risk endangering the safety of the Canadian citizens abroad.”
Shirley Anthony, a spokeswoman for Calgary-based TVI Pacific Inc, confirmed that Ridsdel, a semi-retired consultant, was among those taken by the gunmen. “We are still learning more about the situation,” she said.
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Philippine military sources said the gunmen spoke English and Tagalog, the language spoken widely in the Philippines. “Two Japanese tourists tried to intervene but failed,” one of the sources said. The gunmen fled towards the Mindanao mainland with their captives, the source said.
Three navy ships were sent to search and intercept the gunmen’s boat, while ground units were also alerted to locate possible landing sites in southeastern Mindanao, an army commander said.
In 2001, al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf Islamist militants tried but failed to kidnap foreign tourists on Samal island’s Pearl Farm resort. Three security men died fighting the attackers.
