Suspected militants yesterday abducted two Filipino sailors from a cargo ship in the southern Philippines, hours after troops rescued two Malaysians held captive for eight months, officials said. The two sailors were seized from the cargo vessel MV Super Shuttle RORO 9 off the province of Basilan, said Lieutenant Commander Alvin Dagalea, a coastguard station commander.
The new hostages were the ship’s captain and its chief engineer, Dagalea said. The 40 other crew members of the cargo ship were unharmed and continuing their journey to the southern city of General Santos from the central province of Cebu, he added.
The kidnapping occurred hours after Philippine troops recovered Malaysians Tayudin Anjut, 45, and Abdurahim bin Sumas, 62, during “a focused military operation” off the island of Pata in the southern province of Sulu, said army Major General Carlito Galvez.
“The rescued kidnap victims are weak and in a sickly state when they were rescued by our troops,” he said. “Military doctors are now attending to them in our hospital in Sulu.”
The rescue was launched after the military received information that Abu Sayyaf rebels holding the Malaysians were hiding in a mangrove area on the island, he added.
The hostages were among five crew members of a tugboat abducted in July last year off the Malaysian state of Sabah. Troops “are continuing pursuit against the kidnap for ransom groups to rescue the remaining kidnap victims and continue the pressure on the Abu Sayyaf to release their hostages and possibly for them to surrender to authorities,” Galvez said. Other than the Malaysians, the Abu Sayyaf militants are believed to be holding more than 30 hostages, including 12 Vietnamese sailors, seven Indonesians and a Dutch man kidnapped in 2012.
On February 26, the group beheaded a 70-year-old German man who had been held captive for three months on the nearby island of Jolo after his ransom was not paid. Aside from undertaking kidnappings for ransom, the Abu Sayyaf group has been blamed for some of the worst terrorist attacks in the Philippines.
Malaysian seaman Abdurahim bin Sumas (in blue) is carried by military personnel to a waiting helicopter at a military hospital in Jolo town, Sulu province in southern island of Mindanao, yesterday, to be transported to Zamboanga City, after he and another Malaysian were rescued in Sulu island. Tayudin Anjut and Abdurahim bin Sumas, the two ailing Malaysian seamen held hostage by Filipino militants for eight months, were found yesterday aboard a boat adrift off the southern Philippines, the local military said.
