Filipino gunmen kidnap tourists

Kjartan Sekkinstad (left), John Ridsdel and Robert Hall

Gunmen holding three foreigners and one Filipino hostage have slipped past a naval cordon and escaped to remote mountains in the southern Philippines without making ransom demands, the police said Wednesday.

Elite Army troops were trying to track the bandits while Air Force helicopters were readied for a possible rescue as the abductors trekked into Davao Oriental province, a hotbed of Maoist and Islamic rebels, said senior superintendent Aaron Aquino, the region’s deputy police commander.

The gunmen seized two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian employee and a Filipina from a luxury island resort on Monday night, adding to a string of kidnappings of foreigners in the conflict-wracked south since the 1990s.

“Last night, we received information that the kidnappers and their victims have been sighted... They are in the Davao Oriental area,” Mr Aquino told DZBB radio.

“Our scout rangers are following their tracks. They are on their trail. The air force is also helping, ready for insertion.”The police and the navy had tried to set up a boat blockade on Tuesday around Samal island, where the four were abducted, to stop the gunmen escaping on their outriggers.

But Mr Aquino’s comments confirmed the abductors had slipped past and sailed about 50 km east to Davao Oriental, a poor farming and fishing region on the far southeastern edge of Mindanao island.

Canadian tourists John Ridsdel, 68, and Robert Hall, 50, were among those abducted.