Woman, son and relative kidnapped in south Philippines

Manila: Fourteen armed men abducted a Filipino-American woman, her 14-year-old son, and her Filipino nephew whom the police suspect may have conspired with kidnappers in southern Philippines — the base of the notorious Al Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf Group — radio and TV reports said.

Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, 50, son Kevin Lunsmann, 14, and nephew Romnick Jackaria, 19, were seized from a beach near their home, in a coastal resort on Tictabon Island, east of Zamboanga City, at three on Monday afternoon, senior police Superintendant Edwin de Ocampo said yesterday.

The kidnappers, who came in a boat, forced their victims to go with them towards Basilan, de Ocampo quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

On June 11, Basilan-based Jakaria joined his aunt and cousin to serve as a tour guide in the south, de Ocampo said, adding that eyewitnesses claimed that he disappeared as soon as the kidnappers got their targets: the mother and son.

No ransom demand

During the incident, the kidnappers covered the faces of the bodyguards on the resort owned by Lunsmann, Police Chief Nonito Asdai said in a radio interview.

While they were being forced into the boat, the mother and son left their passports on the beach, Asdai said.

The kidnappers have not contacted Lunsmann's relatives for ransom demands. Lunsmann's German-American husband was informed about the incident, a local government official, who requested for anonymity, said.

Meanwhile, officials have formed a hostage-crisis committee to start negotiations for the release of the victims, the official added. The military and the police deployed men in areas where the kidnappers might have brought their victims, said Army Colonel Buenaventura Pascual, head of Zamboanga City's anti-terrorist task force.

The USA-based Lunsmanns had arrived in Zamboanga on June 30 after a reunion with Gerfa's parents in Tictabon.

An American couple that adopted Lunsmann had brought her to the US when she was nine.

The Abu Sayyaf Group is still holding a child and two other kidnap victims in the south.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) which has been engaged in peace talks with the Philippine government since 1997, has extended assistance for the release of the kidnapped victims.

The 400-strong militant group has been engaged in kidnap-for-ransom, beheadings, bombings, and other terror activities mostly in Zamboanga, Sulu, and Basilan since the late 1990s.

It was also responsible for the bombing of a ferry that sank and killed hundreds off Manila in 2004 and has been blamed for giving sanctuary to Indonesian and Malaysian bomb experts and members of the Jemaah Islamiyah — a group that was responsible for the bombings that killed 200 in Bali in 2002.

The US and the EU have included it in a list of foreign terror groups.