Manila: A social worker was abducted by four gunmen who were suspected of being members of an Al Qaida-linked terror group in the southern Philippines, a radio report said.
Four members of the Abu Sayyaf group, on two motorcycles, abducted Jenelyn Luna Enpera, a social worker, while she was inspecting projects of the department of social welfare and development in Ulitan village, Ungkaya Pukan town, Basilan at 9am on Wednesday, Senior Superintendent Mario Dapilloza, provincial director of Basilan, said.
Armed with .45-calibre pistols, the social worker was taken to Sumisip town in Basilan, said Dapilloza quoting eyewitnesses.
Earlier, Enpera was warned not to proceed to Ulitan village because of the alleged presence of kidnap-for-ransom gangs there, Municipal Mayor Jomar Maturan said in another radio interview.
Eyewitnesses identified two of the kidnappers by their nicknames, Idol and Ulay, and said they were known as Abu Sayyaf members, said Maturan.
The Abu Sayyaf group has been blamed for kidnappings, beheadings, bombings and other terrorist activities in the south.
It has been responsible for high profile kidnap-for-ransom activities that have targeted mostly foreign tourists.
It has also been blamed for the bombing that sank a commercial ferry and killed 100 people at the Manila Bay in 2004.
The group, composed mostly of Filipino-Muslims, emerged in the south in the 1990s.
