Philippine troops will withdraw from a jungle area on the southern island of Jolo as demanded by Islamic militants who have threatened to behead one of three Red Cross hostages, an official said yesterday.
Philippine Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno said the withdrawal should be completed within 36 hours and should open a humanitarian corridor for the Abu Sayyaf to free one of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hostages.
“I think we are more than bending over backwards in order that the kidnappers will not feel threatened,” Puno told reporters in the southern city of Zamboanga.
He said the pull-out would begin later yesterday when Jolo Governor Abdusakur Tan returned to the island, where Filipina Mary Jean Lacaba, Swiss national Andreas Notter and Italian Eugenio Vagni were seized on Jan. 15.
Puno said the withdrawal would involve about 600 to 800 police, troops and pro-government militiamen who have cordoned off the jungle area where the hostages are believed to be held by the militants.
“We are also asking them to comply with their earlier promise as a sign of good faith,” Puno said.
Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad had earlier given the military until tomorrow to withdraw from the area or he would behead one of the hostages. However, he has said he would free one if his demand was met.
The decision to pull back the troops came shortly after a rare appeal by ICRC chief Jakob Kellenberger for the gunmen to unconditionally free the hostages.
Kellenberger said he was “very concerned” by the kidnappers’ threat to behead one of the three ICRC workers being held on the southern island of Jolo unless government troops stationed there pulled back by tomorrow.
He called for the ICRC aid workers unconditional release.
“I am asking for their safe, unconditional and immediate release,” Kellenberger said in a statement issued late on Friday in Manila and Geneva, where the ICRC is based. “It is impossible to understand what the kidnappers could possibly achieve by hurting them. Harming a humanitarian aid worker cannot be justified under any ideology or religious law.”
The ICRC rarely speaks out on political issues for fear of jeopardizing its neutrality.
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