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By APD writer Maverick
**JAKARTA, Sept. 7 (APD) ** — Two Indonesian hostages managed to escape from the custody of Philippine militant group Abu Sayyaf on Thursday, would be returned to Indonesia after undergone several processes carried out by local authorities and Indonesian diplomatic office in Philippines’ Davao city.
Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said that the two escaped Indonesians have been kept by the Philippines militant in the past 10 months, escaped earlier in the day at around 6.30 a.m.
The two were identified as Saparudin and Sawal, part of Malaysian fishing boat crews which were kidnapped by the militants on
November 19 last year in Batu waters near Sabah, Malaysia.
“The two Indonesian hostages were now kept in Joint Task Force headquarters in Sulu for further health examination process. This is a routine procedure to assure their current state of health,”
the minister said in a teleconference from Singapore on Thursday.
After the health check, the minister said that they would
be brought to headquarters of Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in Zamboanga where they would be received by Indonesian officials from Indonesian Consulate General office in Davao and to be returned to Indonesia afterwards.
A statement released by the Philippines military said that the release of Indonesian hostages was following a gunfight between government’s troops and the militants in an island located in the latter’s stronghold of Jolo in Mindanao, Southern Philippines.
The gunfight has injured five Philippines troops and killed at least 20 militants, a Philippines military commander Brigadier General Cirilito Soebejana said in a statement on Thursday.
He said those two hostages were found in a van which was intercepted by the troops shortly after the gunfight.
“They (the Indonesian hostages) were now safe, undergoing procedural processes after the health check,” Soebejana said.
The Philippines authorities said that Abiu Sayyaf militants were still holding 18 hostages from Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands and Vietnam, in Jolo and Basilan, Southern Philippines.
The notorious militants often kidnapped vessel crews in waters bordering the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, demanding ransom for the hostages’ lives. Last year they beheaded one German and two Canadians as their ransoms were not paid as due date expired.
Abu Sayyaf
Abu Sayyaf partakes in the Islamic State (IS) terrorists’ siege over the Philippines city of Marawi since May this year. The Philippines military is still struggling to re seize the city from the terrorists’ control at present.
The gunfights between government’s troops and the terrorists in Marawi siege have claimed more than 800 lives of which 145 of them were troops, reports said.
(ASIA PACIFIC DAILY)
