Wednesday 23rd September 2015
Back on 2XS, in
Ocean View Marina on Samal Island, Mindanao.
We were looking forward to being back in our littLE floating home but in
THE airport I logged into Facebook and found dreadful news…
This article is in today's Australian; John forwarded it to us)
MANILA: Gunmen have kidnapped two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian
employee and a Filipina from a resort island in the conflict-racked southern
Philippines.
The suspects sailed two motorboats into a marina on Samal island,
about 800km southeast of Manila, and seized the four from aboard yachts just
before midnight on Monday, police spokesman Antonio Rivera said yesterday.
Law enforcement boats and helicopters were scouring the waters
around the island yesterday to try to stop the kidnappers from leaving the
area.
“They appeared to target the foreigners. They went straight for the
yachts,” Superintendent Rivera said. “We still don’t have anything. We’re
blank. No group has taken responsibility and there is no demand for ransom.”
The Canadians abducted from the Holiday Ocean View resort were
identified as John Ridsdel, 68, and Robert Hall, 50. The Norwegian, who was
working at the marina, was identified as Kjartan Sekkinstad, 56. The
40-year-old Filipina, identified only as Tess, was a companion of one of the
foreign tourists.
A Japanese couple was nearly abducted but they fought back.
A Norwegian foreign ministry spokeswoman in Oslo said the government
was investigating the reports.
Samal island, a short boat ride from the southern commercial centre
of Davao on Mindanao island, is famed for powdery white sand beaches and dive
spots, with resorts there charging up to $US500 ($700) a night.
The southern Philippines has endured decades of conflict, with
Muslim rebels waging a separatist conflict that has claimed tens of thousands
of lives.
In the most recent kidnapping of foreigners, gunmen from the
separatist Abu Sayyaf seized a German couple in April last year while they were
sailing off the island of Palawan.
The couple was released six months later, with Abu Sayyaf claiming
it had received all of the 250 million pesos ($7.6m) it demanded in ransom.
AFP
We missed all of
the horror by less than 24 hours. This marina
is now probably the safest place in the Philippines – armed soldiers on duty,
day and night.
But we are sick
with worry about our marina friends.
(The report is not
quite accurate. They didn’t bring their
boats into the marina; there is a secure gate which prevents access. They parked their boats outside the high
walls and somehow ran the hostages along the marina walls and down into the boats. Not sure how…Kjartan, the marina manager, is
a strong silent tough and honourable man, similar in character and build to
John Miedecke – if I were a bandit I would NOT try to abduct Kjartan!! On a lighter note…John sent me an email asking if we still had our panga (big strong machete-type thing from the Solomons. And yes…pete sleeps with it next to his pillow!!))
