Manila: Government forces launched a pursuit of a group of gunmen following reports that two Filipino-Algerian employees of a local Sultan had been abducted in Sulu.
Reports said sisters Linda Abdel Basit and Nadova Abdel Basit had taken public transport on their way to the village of Tagilbi in Patikul from the capital town, Jolo, when eight gunmen flagged down their vehicle and took them away.
Bombo Radyo’s Zamboanga City station quoted Col Jose Cenabre, Joint Task Force Sulu commander, as saying that the sisters were taken around 9,30 am on Saturday by gunmen led by a certain Ninok Sappari.
The Abdul Basit sisters are employees of Sultan Bantilan Muizudin a local leader in the village of Kalajatian in Sulu.
Aside from the information provided by the radio report, little is known concerning the circumstances of the abduction.
The kidnapping is the latest to take place on the southern Philippines island notorious for abduction for ransom activities by armed groups under the employment of either local warlords or the Abu Sayyaf.
Last April, a local trader was abducted by a group of gunmen as he was in his coffee shop in Patikul. Reynato Yanga, 53, was taken by suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen for the second time in eight years. He had been kidnapped before in 2005 and was released on payment of ransom.
On June 12, 2012, suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen abducted Jordanian journalist Baker Al Atyani as well as his two Filipino television crew members. Al Atyani works for the Al Arabiya news channel.
The two Filipino freelance cameramen, Ramil Vela and Buboy Letrero, were found by authorities later in Sulu but the whereabouts of Al Atyani remain unknown until today.
The abductions in Sulu have taken place despite the heavy presence of military forces on the island. Aside from Philippine forces, a group of American military-civic advisers are also temporarily based there.
