ZAMBOANGA CITY (Mindanao Examiner / Apr. 5, 2014) – Malaysia has tagged an Abu Sayyaf group linked to previous kidnappings for ransom in Sabah as behind the latest raid and abduction of a Chinese tourist and a Filipino worker on one of the island’s resorts.
At least 7 gunmen raided the Singamata Adventures and Reef Resort in the town of Semporna in Sabah on April 2 and seized a 29-year old Chinese holidaymaker Gao Huayun, 29, and Filipino resort worker Marcy Dayawan, 40.
Director-General Datuk Mohammad Mentek, of the Eastern Sabah Security Command, said the two victims are being held by Abu Sayyaf rebels who were also involved in the 2000 kidnappings of 21 mostly European holidaymakers and Asian workers at the Pulau Sipadan resort; and also in the kidnapping in November of a Taiwanese woman on Pom Pom Island, according to a report by Malaysia’s online newspaper The Star.
“We believe that this particular ‘kidnap for ransom’ group is active and aggressive in the southern Philippines,” Mohammad said, adding that the local Filipino community in Semporna might have provided information to the gunmen.
He said 15 foreign employees of the resort have been detained for working without valid documents.
Police also said that four employees were also arrested on suspicion they were involved or have provided information to the raiders. Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Hamza Taib confirmed that three women and a man aged between 20 and 50 have been arrested for questioning.
Police authorities in southern Philippines said there have been no sightings of the Abu Sayyaf raiders and their hostages. “We have no reports that the Abu Sayyaf tagged in the raid in Sabah have landed in Sulu, but we are continuously monitoring the situation on the ground,” Senior Superintendent Abraham Orbita, the Sulu police chief, told the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
The navy also deployed small boats to patrol the long coastline of the archipelago.
“We are exerting efforts to search and locate the kidnapped victims in probable areas in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi where they could have been brought. Naval Task Force 62 is now conducting extensive search while other units in the area have been in high alert,” marine Captain Maria Rowena Myuela, a spokeswoman for the Western Mindanao Command, said.
Citing an intelligence report, a Philippine army spokesman, Lt. Col. Ramon Zagala, has told reporters in Manila that the abductors have landed in Simunul Island off Tawi-Tawi province, but subsequent military operations in the area have yielded negative reports on the presence of the gunmen or their hostages.
The Abu Sayyaf under Radullan Sahiron was largely blamed for the daring raid on the posh Pulau Sipadan resort in 2000 where they kidnapped 21 people and ransomed them off to Malaysia and Libya for at least $25 million.
In November, the Abu Sayyaf kidnapped a Taiwanese tourist Chang An Wei, 58, after killing her husband Hsu Li Min, 57, 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 weapons and fund terror attacks in the Philippines. (Mindanao Examiner)
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