An Italian priest kidnapped by Islamic militants broke down in tears yesterday as he described his six weeks of captivity in the Philippine jungle.
Giancarlo Bossi, freed overnight after days of negotiations with the militants led by a former Islamic rebel, said he was repeatedly forced to march through the jungle at gunpoint as his captors tried to evade the authorities.
The 57-year-old said President Gloria Arroyo had told him in a brief meeting that 14 Philippine marines had been killed while they were searching for him on Basilan Island in the south, which is a stronghold of Muslim rebels.
PHOTO: EPA
"She told me that many people had been working hard for my freedom," he said.
Bossi said his kidnappers had told him that they were members of Abu Sayyaf, an extremist group that the US and Philippine governments say is linked to al-Qaeda.
But police said his captors were members of a breakaway faction of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a separatist guerrilla group holding peace talks with the Philippine government.
Bossi said his abductors were taking orders from an unnamed person by mobile telephone and were seeking a 50 million peso (US$1.11 million) ransom to raise money to prepare for an unspecified rebel operation.
"I was the means to get a ransom. That's what they told me," he said. "I memorized their faces and said, `If I see any of them around I will go to the police and tell them -- That is one of my kidnappers,'" he said.
Philippine officials insisted no ransom was paid, and Bossi said he did not see any exchange of money.
In Rome, Pope Benedict XVI welcomed the news with "great joy," said Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi.
Bossi was seized on the southern peninsula of Zamboanga after celebrating Sunday mass on June 10. He said he was then forced to board a boat that took him to the Lanao region of Mindanao, where he spent the rest of his time.
"We changed hiding places sometimes, walking up mountains and crossing fields but we never strayed from there," said the priest, who lost around 7kg after being given only salted fish and rice to eat.
"I had a problem with the food," he said. "That's the reason why I [lost] a lot of weight. But never mind, I will have a chance to increase my weight again."
Efforts this month to find Bossi turned violent when the militants ambushed and beheaded marines on southern Basilan Island who were investigating a tip-off that he was being held in the area.
The government believed the attackers were a mix of fighters from Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, which has denied any involvement in the beheadings.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS