Sound familiar?
This is stuff you need to be aware of when staying at remote Philippine resorts, particularly in Southern & Western Mindanao.
Good for the Canadian guy and his wife who made a break for it. That probably saved their lives...
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3 foreigners, Filipina kidnapped from Samal Island resort
September 22, 2015 6:08am
(Updated 8:39 a.m.) Gunmen kidnapped three foreign nationals and a Filipina from a resort on Samal Island in Davao del Norte, Monday night.
RGMA Davao's Raul Tolibas said that according to Superintendent Lito Impas of the Samal Island police, at least 20 armed men wearing balaclavas and black shirts stormed the Ocean View Resort in Barangay Camudmud, Babak district before 11 p.m.
Tolibas said that according to Impas the gunmen initially took six people, but a Canadian named Steven and his Japanese wife, Kazuka, were able to jump from the kidnappers' boat. The couple is now confined at a district hospital on the island.
The four kidnapped victims were identified as Kjartan Sekkingstad, a Norwegian and operations manager of the resort; Canadians John Ridsel and Robert Hall and his Filipina wife identified only as Tess.
Impas told RGMA Davao that they were requesting a copy of the CCTV footage of the resort.
Tolibas said that according to Impas, the kidnappers could be members of the New People's Army or a local bandit group called BAMA or Bangsamoro Army, a mix of breakaway members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the Moro National Liberation Front.
Tolibas said that the kidnappers wrote the message: "Alay namin sa aming kumander" around the resort, before leaving with their captives.
Capt. Alberto Caber, chief of the public affairs office of the Armed Forces' Eastern Mindanao Command, said naval operations were ongoing to locate the kidnappers and their victims.
The local Philippine Coast Guard unit and the local police are also conducting pursuit operations.
Not the first time
This is not the first time that an armed group attacked a posh resort in the Philippines.
In 2001, the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf tried but failed to abduct tourists from Samal Island's Pearl Farm. Three employees died when they engaged the raiding Abu Sayyaf men in a firefight.
Also in 2001, Abu Sayyaf bandits seized local and foreign tourists at the posh Dos Palmas resort in Palawan, including US missionaries Martin and Gracia Burnham.
Returning to Basilan, the bandits took local hostages along the way, even escaping a military dragnet in Lamitan in June that same year.
The Dos Palmas hostage-taking drama ended June 2002 when government security forces stormed the bandits' lair in Sibuco, Zamboanga del Norte. At the time, three remained as hostages — the Burnham couple and Filipino nurse Ediborah Yap.
Martin and Ediborah, however, were caught in the crossfire. Gracia survived, but sustained a gunshot wound in her leg. —DVM/ALG, GMA News
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