Hostages in Philippines must endure hell of
military offensive
MANILA, Sept 18 (AFP) - For 22
hostages held by Muslim extremists in the southern Philippines, the military offensive
aimed at rescuing them is probably turning their already harsh ordeal into a nightmare.
Government officials believe
none of the hostages has been killed. Military chief General Angelo Reyes said Sunday the
kidnappers fled to the hills, taking hostages with them, after troops launched the assault
on their strongholds in the southern island of Jolo on Saturday.
Despite earlier threats to kill
the hostages if a rescue attempt were launched, Reyes believes the Abu Sayyaf will keep
them alive as they provide "no small amount of protection" from the military.
Only a handful of Abu Sayyaf
have been killed so far as the extremists are fleeing rather than engaging the troops,
Reyes said.
French television channel
France-2 said Abu Sayyaf leader Galib Andang, accompanied by a dozen armed men, fled his
camp before the offensive and took two kidnapped France-2 journalists, Jean Jacques Le
Garrec and Roland Madura, with him.
Military officials in Jolo
previously warned that the thickly forested, hilly terrain would make catching the
extremists difficult. They said the gunmen would have few qualms about making their
captives march for hours in the dark through this rough country.
This was precisely what the
first set of 21 hostages endured when they were snatched from the Malaysian resort of
Sipadan on April 23 and taken by sea to Jolo.
The military and police pursued
the kidnappers, prompting the Abu Sayyaf to keep their captives on the move even as they
exchanged shots with soldiers.
The 21 -- Malaysians, Germans,
French, South Africans, Finnish, Filipinos and a Franco-Lebanese woman -- were forced to
live in huts in the jungle, groping their way from place to place at night under armed
escort, often terrified by gunfire.
Diarrhoea contracted from
drinking dirty stream water hit many of them. They also grew thin and weak from the
spartan diet of rice and root crops.
Balnkrishnan Nair, a Malaysian
hostage freed on July 21, later recalled that "six people had to share one glass of
water a day. The last one to drink has to drink all the dirt and sediment at the
bottom."
All but one of the Sipadan
hostages has been freed. Many remember this early period as the worst part of their
months-long captivity and some blame the Philippine military more than their captors.
German hostage Werner Wallert,
57, freed on August 27, later said that the threat to their lives did not come from the
Abu Sayyaf.
"The immediate danger of
death came from the Philippine military," he recounted.
"An attack, that is what
we feared the most," Finnish ex-hostage Risto Vahanen said recently, adding that
troops launched two attacks on Aby Sayyaf hideouts while he was being held.
Freed Malaysian hostage Ken
Fong said that during a 45-minute gunbattle, the hostages could only lie on the floor of a
hut in terror as guns and bombs went off around them.
In mid-May the military
withdrew its cordon around the hideouts due to pressure from European governments, who
feared their citizens would be hurt.
Analysts believe this
emboldened the Abu Sayyaf to seize more hostages even as they freed some in exchange for
large ransom payments.
After their latest kidnapping
of three more Malaysians on September 10, President Joseph Estrada decided that despite
the risk to the captives, "enough is enough."
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