Moro rebels abduct 6 in Basilan village

ZAMBOANGA CITY — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels abducted six people, including a 10-year-old boy, who were harvesting coconuts in a remote village in Basilan yesterday, police said.

The farmers were seized in the village of Upper Colonia in the Basilan town of Lamitan, police said.

Reports reaching the military said MILF guerrillas led by one Sakpar Yacub were behind the kidnapping.

Yacub said they do not intend to demand any ransom, but told the military to stop its operation in the Sampinit complex or else they will harm their captives.

Maj. Gen. Narciso Abaya, chief of the Army’s 1st Infantry Division, identified the kidnap victims as Jose Dara-og, 36, his wife Gina, 45; Ignacio Flores Jr., 46, his son Arnold, 10; Felix Acasa, 56; and Roland Forbido, 30.

A police team, accompanied by militiamen, was trying to locate the farmers, police officials said.

Suspected rebels also abducted a teacher, Leticia Pascual, and her three children aged 6 to 9 in Barangay Lumbang in Isabela, Basilan’s capital, last week. Police said the abductors were Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. Two of the children were later released.

The military is continuing a massive offensive against the rebels on the nearby island of Sulu, where the Abu Sayyaf are holding American Jeffrey Schilling and Filipino dive master Roland Ullah hostage.

A military spokesman, Col. Fredesvindo Covarrubias, said four more rebels and a soldier were killed in separate clashes over the weekend in Sulu.

Government troops are also investigating at least 48 people aboard an outrigger boat who possessed unlicensed guns when they were stopped by soldiers last Sunday, he said.

Abu Sayyaf rebels took scores of foreign and Filipino hostages starting in March but have freed most of them in exchange for more than $15 million in ransom, officials said. — Roel Pareño