2 abducted women taken to Jolo by Abu Sayyaf: police

Philippine military and police tracking the group led by Murphy Ambang Ladjia, better known as Haji Gulam, suspect the gunmen have moved out of their base at Simunul on Tawi Tawi Island and headed to the Abu Sayyaf stronghold of Jolo, which has been called “the kidnap capital of the Philippines”.

Sulu provincial police chief Supt Abraham Orbita said security forces had received reports of gunmen arriving at Jolo island with Chinese tourist Gao Huayun, 29, of Shanghai, and Filipina hotel employee Marcy Dayawan, 40, who were snatched from the Singamata Reef Resort late on Wednesday.

“We are trying to confirm these reports,” he said when contacted by telephone in Jolo yesterday.

He said security forces had been keeping a close watch on the coastline of islands around the Sulu province for signs of the gunmen and the abducted women.

Sabah officials, who declined to be identified, said a call had been received from an anonymous individual claiming that he and his group were holding the two women. But it was not be known who the call was made to or whether it was a genuine claim.

However, both Sabah Police Commisisoner Hamza Taib and Eastern Sabah Security Command director-general Datuk Mohammad Mentek said they had not received any report of a ransom call.

 

Ransom call to family

Hamza said that Malaysian police were in contact with their Philippine counterparts and providing whatever assistance was required to secure the release of the two women.

Both women were reported to be alive and well on Friday by intelligence sources, and they are likely to be held in a village under the control of Abu Sayyaf in Jolo.

Meanwhile, Philippine deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte said in Manila that the country’s armed forces were focusing their search in Jolo and other nearby southern islands.

Valte said Philippine security forces had mounted naval blockades in their search for suspicious vessels.

“We have also alerted the West Mindanao Command units in Basilan, Sulu and Tawi Tawi,” she said.

AFP reported yesterday that kidnappers holding a Chinese tourist who was abducted from a resort on Malaysia’s Borneo island had made a phone call to her family in China, a senior security official said yesterday.

The gunmen have communicated with the family of Gao Huayuan, 29, whom security forces believe is being held in Jolo Island in the south of the Philippines, Mohammad Mentek, eastern Sabah security command director-general, told AFP.

“They have made telephone contact with her family,” he said.

The Abu Sayyaf, a small band of militants infamous for kidnapping for ransom, are the prime suspects in Wednesday’s abductions of the Chinese tourist and the Filipina resort worker, Marcy Dayawan, 40.

Mohammad said that Malaysian authorities believe the two hostages are safe.

“We hope they will be returned safely to their families as soon as possible,” he said.

Philippine authorities believe the kidnappers are affiliated with Abu Sayyaf “sub-commander” Murphy Ambang Ladjia, who was involved in a spectacular kidnapping of 21 people from another Sabah resort in 2000.