A sacked prison guard was part of the armed gang who kidnapped three staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in the southern Philippines, authorities said yesterday.
Rescuers have had no communication with the gunmen, who on Thursday snatched Andreas Notter of Switzerland, Eugenio Vagni of Italy and Filipina Jean Lacaba, and the hostages’ condition and location are unknown, Lieutenant-General Nelson Allaga of the Philippine Marines said.
Their empty Red Cross vehicle was found after they missed a flight back to Manila following a visit to a jail where the guard used to work.
A spokesman for the Philippine office of the Red Cross said they had just visited a prison in the town of Patikul on Jolo island, a stronghold of the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, to check on the condition of inmates.
“We have established the identity of one of the kidnappers. He is a dismissed guard of the Patikul jail,” Allaga said over local radio without naming the suspect.
Jolo Mayor Amin Hussin said a former jail warden in Patikul whom he did not name was under investigation for possible involvement.
It was unclear if he and Allaga were referring to the same person.
“I know him well. He’s a religious man,” Hussin told local television. “I don’t think he was involved, but if that’s what they say, we should let the law take its course.”
Allaga, the military commander in the western Mindanao area, said they had not established any direct link between the kidnapping and Abu Sayyaf.
“We’re not really sure whether the Abu Sayyaf was behind the kidnapping because no group has come forward to claim responsibility for the abduction,” Allaga told reporters.
He said kidnappings in Jolo, which is ruled by close-knit Muslim clans, are usually “complicated” operations involving two or more groups of armed men at a time.
“Sometimes one group would grab the victims and turn them over to another group,” Allaga said.
Hussin however insisted: “I heard the three are now in the custody of the Abu Sayyaf group.”
Hussin said local officials and political leaders in the mainly Muslim island, a hotbed of ransom kidnappings, were reluctant to help the national authorities initiate contact with the suspects out of fear that they will be accused of being in league with the abductors.
Philippine Social Welfare Secretary Esperanza Cabral said the latest abduction would not affect the work of the government and international aid agencies that are feeding and housing about 100,000 civilians displaced in the south by fighting between government forces and Muslim separatist rebels.
“The work of humanitarian assistance will continue. It’s a risk that all of us take, not just the ICRC,” she told reporters.
“We’re very sorry that this happened. We condemn the violent act that happened to these three people,” she added. “We hope that there will be no further incidents like this.”
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
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
‘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
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