UPDATES WITH LOCATION OF KIDNAPPED VICTIM’S WIFE
By Hader Glang & Ainur Rohmah
ZAMBOANGA CITY, the Philippines/TUBAN, Indonesia (AA) – Government troops have found another Indonesian kidnap victim, after he escaped his Daesh-affiliated captors with a previously discovered shipmate as they threatened to behead the two men.
Major Filemon Tan Jr., spokesman of the military’s Western Mindanao Command (WestMinCom), told reporters Thursday that the captain of a vessel seized by the Abu Sayyaf in June was found walking along a road Wednesday in the troubled Philippines island province of Sulu in the Muslim south.
“[He] identified himself as the chief officer of the tugboat ‘Charles’,” said Tan.
Tan said that military troops were scouring the area looking for other hostages following the discovery of fellow Indonesian Mohammad Safyan caught in fishing nets on the Sulu shoreline, when they found “Ismail” who identified himself as a kidnap victim.
“The subject, along with Mohammad Safyan, escaped yesterday [Wednesday] from the hands of the ASG [Abu Sayyaf]. They separated ways after the ASG chased them. Safyan was earlier rescued by local residents along the shoreline of Barangay Bual in Luuk, Sulu,” Tan added.
In a phone interview with Anadolu Agency on Thursday, Ismail’s wife, Dian Megawati said she had been delighted to hear late Wednesday that her husband had been freed, but said that some hostages remained.
Samarinda”I’m happy, but also sad because not all are free. We [the hostages’ families] are very close to each other. We empathize with each other,” Megawati said from her home in, the capital of the Indonesian province of East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo.
The duo are two of seven men kidnapped in late June when the Abu Sayyaf ambushed a tugboat — the TB Charles — carrying 13 Indonesians in the Sulu Sea. While six of the crew were released, seven others were taken, their abductors then demanding a ransom.
The men — kidnapped mid June — were due to be executed by the Abu Sayyaf Aug. 15 after the deadline for $5.4 million passed.
Megawati added Thursday that the families are becoming increasingly afraid about the fate of the other crew
“They are frightened now. But we do not stop hoping they survive.”
On Wednesday, Tan said reports from ground units disclosed that Safyan had escaped from a mangrove farm when his captors declared that they would behead him.
Tan said Thursday that Ismail is now in having a medical check up at Joint Task Force Sulu headquarters, and will be turned over to Indonesian authorities as soon as possible.
Since 1991, the Abu Sayyaf — armed with mostly improvised explosive devices, mortars and automatic rifles — has carried out bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and extortions in a self-determined fight for an independent province in the Philippines.
It is notorious for beheading victims after ransoms have failed to be paid for their release.
Safyan and Ismail’s escape lowers the number of Indonesian hostages in Abu Sayyaf hands to five, although it is also holding a Norwegian, a Dutchman, three Malaysians, and seven Filipinos.
On Tuesday, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants also abducted a public school teacher in Patikul town in Sulu province.
Late Wednesday, the group released a video threatening to behead a Filipino hostage unless a ransom demand is paid by Aug. 24.
However, the kidnapping of the man in the video — named as Patrick James Almodovar — had not been reported.
The Abu Sayyaf is among two militant groups in the south who have pledged allegiance to Daesh, prompting fears during the stalling of a peace process between the government and the country’s biggest Moro group that it could make inroads in a region torn by decades of armed conflict.
