Gunmen yesterday abducted six Vietnamese sailors and shot another when a bulk carrier was intercepted in Philippine waters off a southern island stronghold of the militant Abu Sayyaf group, the Philippine Coast Guard said.
The cargo ship was bound for the Philippine’s Davao City in another part of Mindanao province, but was intercepted when passing through a strait off Basilan by 10 armed men who came aboard and took hostages.
“One of the crew was shot and was evacuated to a local hospital,” coast guard commander Jerome Cayabyab said.
He said the fate of the captives were uncertain after they were transferred to smaller, faster boats.
It was the second kidnapping incident in the south in a week.
The Abu Sayyaf, a militant group that swears allegiance to the Islamic State, on Monday said it kidnapped a German national.
The Philippine military said that a woman found dead in an abandoned yacht off an island near Basilan was believed to be his female companion.
The latest attack on commercial shipping occurred just hours after Philippine and Malaysian leaders agreed to step up maritime cooperation in their borders to stop piracy.
Abu Sayyaf militants have since March been intercepting slow-moving tug boats towing coal barges in waters near the borders of Malaysia and the Philippines, taking captive more than a dozen Indonesian and Malaysian sailors.
Though the group officially has a separatist agenda, it has become better know for banditry and tactics that have proved highly effective and earned large sums of money.
Several hostages had been freed, but experts say in those cases it is almost certain ransoms were paid.
Abu Sayyaf has beheaded two Canadian hostages this year.
It has 16 captives, including a Dutch, a German, five Malaysians, two Indonesians and seven Filipinos.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the missing sailors.
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