Philippines: Gunmen Abduct Foreigners

Four people — two Canadian men, a Norwegian man and a Filipino woman — were abducted on Monday night from a resort on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, the police said Tuesday. The victims were identified as John Ridsdel and Robert Hall, both of Canada, and Kjartan Sekkingstad ofNorway. The identity of the Filipino woman has not yet been confirmed. The four were taken from the Oceanview Resort on Samal island, off the southern coast of Mindanao, about 11:40 p.m. Mindanao has been a frequent site of kidnappings and violence between government troops and several rebel groups, including Muslim extremists that have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. But Monday’s kidnapping is the first abduction of foreign tourists in Mindanao in more than two years. In 2012, a Swiss national, Lorenzo Vinciguerra, and Ewold Horn, from the Netherlands, were abducted while bird watching off the coast of Mindanao. Mr. Vinciguerra escaped last December. Mr. Horn is still being held.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/22/w...er=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=2

Don't like the sound of that at all.

Bit too close for comfort.
I wonder if there's more to this than meets the eye ?

Very easy to move if I want to

Bit more information here:-

http://cnnphilippines.com/regional/...Filipina-kidnapped-Samal-Davao-del-Norte.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...foreign-tourists-from-Philippines-resort.html

The UK Government only removed any warnings about being kidnapped on Monday morning. Following the kidnappings on Monday evening, they were quick to re-instate those warnings this morning.

This doesn't sound like Abu Sayaf territory to me..Seems very risky ...Lots of tourists there and they take only 4??
Seems the Canadian is a local Mining executive.. Target for NPA??

They took a whole single 'party ' of 6 but thankfully 2 escaped by jumping ship

there's more to this than meets the eye.

and his family were British. More here

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...es-was-trying-to-help-others/article26490312/

Police Release Sketch of 1 Kidnapper in Samal Island Abduction – The Insanity Continues



DAVAO CITY, Philippines – The Special Investigation Task Group assigned to Ocean View Marina in Samal Island has released what they call a cartographic sketch of one of the eleven men responsible for the abduction of four victims, one Filipino and three foreigners.

The sketch is highly unprofessional and worthy of a 3-year-old with crayons – the description was given by the couple who were pistol whipped on the one boat and left on the docks – they did not jump off a moving boat as first reported.

http://philippineslifestyle.com/blo...amal-island-abduction-the-insanity-continues/

Three threads posted by Boots and all are Muslim related.......
Perhaps using a different word in Google search would stop the frequency of such threads
Tiresome repetition.

There are no muslims on my street

Samal kidnap victims taken to Sulu: Duterte

MANILA - Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte claimed Saturday that the four tourists kidnapped by armed men on Samal Island in Davao Oriental have been taken to Sulu.

Duterte said he received intelligence information on the kidnapped Filipina and three foreigners last Thursday. His sources said the hostages were taken from Holiday Ocean Resort on a pumpboat and were possibly later transferred to a larger and faster motorized boat.

The mayor said the group passed by Glan, Sarangani and from there, took only six hours to reach Sulu.

The pumpboats were found Tuesday, hundreds of kilometers southeast of the Davao Oriental province.

Duterte declined to identify the group responsible for taking the four tourists at gunpoint.

He instead said that the armed men may be linked to the Abu Sayyaf Group as one of them appears to resemble a known member of the terror group, based on the resort's closed-circuit television (CCTV) footage.

"They (victims) were delivered to a known Abu Sayyaf Group. Whether they are also actually Abu Sayyaf members, that we do not know. Ganyan 'yan eh, ipasa-pasa na 'yan, so as they are passed on to a new group, lalaki nang lalaki yung patong nila sa ransom," Duterte said.

Duterte believes it is probable that the abduction had been deliberate and that the suspects knew their target.

"We have this hanging suspicion that the hostages are pre-determined victims," he said.

The mayor reiterated that he is willing to be part of the negotiating team for the release of the Canadian tourists John Ridsel and Robert Hall, Norwegian resort manager Kjartan Sekkingstad, and a Filipina only known as Marites.


CONTRARY CLAIM FROM THE PNP

The Philippine National Police (PNP) Special Investigation Task Group (SITG) Ocean View, meanwhile, said that an organized kidnap for ransom group is behind the abduction.

SITG Ocean View head Chief Supt. Federico Dulay also refused to identify the group amid the ongoing rescue operations.

The task group is convinced that the suspects have not yet left Davao Region, contrary to Duterte's claim.

Dulay added that the suspects have yet to ask for money in exchange for the captives' freedom. -- With reports from Michelle Robin, ABS-CBN News Davao

http://rp1.abs-cbnne...en-sulu-duterte

The only place in Mindanao that I have ever visited was Camuguin.. I would have absolutely no qualms or worries about visiting Davao some day if they ever decided to remove the smoking ban.
Samal island is pretty close to Davao and deemed a pretty safe area for tourists in the past. Obviously no longer.
That said,I still wouldn't describe the hostages of being naive or stupid...Just rich,targeted and unlucky.. God help them.

I thought that Davao was fairly safe, though it is few years since I went there,

I see that the UK Government advises against "all but essential travel".

Yikes!


Map from FCO 26/9/15

I notice that Southern Palawan is not coloured red on that map..
Wasn't that where many tourists were taken some years back? From memory there were very few hostage survivors.. I think most of them died in crossfire between the kidnappers and the PNP.

Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't your travel insurance void if you go to an area of a country where the FCO has advised not to go?

I used this a few weeks ago when I was asked to do a job in Cameroon, I sent the company I contract for the FCO details on Cameroon and said I would do the job if it was not in an area shown in red, it was in the red so I refused to go, ended up in Liberia instead.

You're right it is a bad sketch, looks like he got the old etch a sketch out