ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / June 16, 2014) – Suspected Filipino gunmen seized two people on Monday in the town of Kunak in Tawau District in the eastern Malaysian state of Sabah, reports said.
The two victims – a Chinese fish breeder Chan Sai Chiun, and an unidentified Filipino worker – were snatched at gunpoint and dragged to a waiting boat that sped off towards the southern Philippine province of Tawi-Tawi.
It was not immediately known whether the gunmen were Abu Sayyaf militants or members of a kidnap gang operating in Sabah and southern Philippines.
There were no immediate reports from Philippine authorities about the latest abductions, but it occurred 10 days after suspected Abu Sayyaf militants seized a Chinese fish farm manager Yang Zai Lin in Lahad Datu town after raiding the Wonderful Terrace.
Last month, the Abu Sayyaf released a kidnapped Chinese tourist, Gao Huayun and Filipina resort worker Marcy Dayawan in Sulu province in exchange for some 2.2 million ringgits or about 300 million pesos paid by Gao’s family.
The duo was kidnapped on April 2 at the Singamata Adventures and Reef Resort in the town of Semporna also in Sabah where Dayawan works.
The kidnappers originally demanded 36.4 million ringgit as ransom or an equivalent to almost P500 million for the safe release of the Chinese woman. Sources in Sulu told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner that a leader of the Moro National Liberation Front, Nameh Sangkula, helped negotiate the release of the hostages in the village of Bawisan in Parang town. It was unknown who tapped Sangkula to secure the freedom of the hostages.
Then victims were fetched by security forces and handed over to Malaysian officials who were in Jolo town. The freed victims were then whisked to a waiting speedboat that brought them to Sabah.
In November last year, the al-Qaeda linked Abu Sayyaf group also kidnapped a Taiwanese tourist Chang An Wei after killing her husband Hsu Li Min in a daring cross-border raid in Sabah’s Pom Pom Island. The woman was eventually released a month later near the village of Liban in Talipao town in Sulu after paying ransom.
The Abu Sayyaf has resorted to ransom kidnappings to raise money for the purchase of weapons and to fund terror attacks in the country. (Mindanao Examiner)
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