Tribal gunmen holding dozens of people captive in a Philippine jungle received a firm warning by the government yesterday as the crisis entered a third day, officials said.
The small group of gunmen raided a school in a small farming village in the Agusan valley region of the southern island of Mindanao on Thursday and took 75 hostages, including children and relatives of their local rivals.
Twenty-eight hostages, including 18 children were later freed.
PHOTO: EPA
“I outlined to them a certain scenario that would happen if they refused to release the remaining hostages,” said local social worker Josefina Bajade, the chief government negotiator in the crisis.
She would not discuss details. Provincial government officials later met the most senior police and military officials of Agusan del Sur Province here to consider their options.
The officials gave no comment but security sources said on condition of anonymity that the use of force to end the crisis could not be ruled out.
About 400 soldiers and police have deployed in the area amid concern that the kidnappers would harm the hostages, who have been forced to sleep on the ground due to the primitive conditions there, according to government officials who visited the area.
The security sources said there were 19 kidnappers armed with assault rifles who were guarding 47 captives held in and around a hut in a clearing of a thickly forested mountain.
They said that while these people had not received formal combat training, they were convinced that the suspects would not hesitate to kill the hostages, noting that some of them have outstanding arrest warrants for clan war-related murders.
“There are 47 hostages still — 45 men and two women,” Santiago Cane, the vice governor of the province who joined the negotiator in her visit to the gunmen’s hideout on Friday, when they also delivered food.
“We will continue to negotiate in the hope of producing results,” he said.
Bajade visited the gunmen’s hideout in a mountainous area early yesterday, but returned grim-faced in mid-morning, having failed to win the release of any more hostages after two successful visits that saw the release of 28 others.
Bajade insisted that the government had not set a deadline.
Authorities have identified the gunmen as members of the Manobo tribe and said the abduction was linked to a long-running clan dispute involving another Manobo family.
Cane said the gunmen’s leader, Ondo Perez, told the negotiator he was willing to end the hostage crisis if the government arrested his local rival Joel Tubay and his armed followers, who the official said also have outstanding arrest warrants for murder.
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