OWN CORRESPONDENT, Pretoria, Jolo | 8.00pm.
THE South African government on Tuesday urged Manila to take no action that could endanger 21 hostages, two of them South African, who are being held by Muslim rebels on an island in the Philippines.
Sipho Pityana, the director general of the foreign ministry, said in Pretoria: “Nothing should be done that would put the lives of the hostages in jeopardy.”
Pityana’s statement came after fighting broke out between government troops and the Abu Sayyaf rebels holding the hostages on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines, leaving one soldier dead and four wounded.
He said his appeal was also directed at the rebels who seized the hostages — 19 foreigners and two Filipinos — on a resort island on Easter Sunday and are holding them in a hut in a village on Jolo island.
About 500 elite army and police units have surrounded the area and the guerrillas have warned they will behead two foreign captives if security forces do not lift the seige.
Pityana told reporters that South Africa’s message would be conveyed again to Manila by the South African High Commissioner to Malaysia Lindiwe Mabuza, who was dispatched to the Philippines earlier on Tuesday.
Pityana said foreign ministry officials were working closely with their counterparts in Finland, France, Germany and Malaysia — where the other hostages hail from — to ensure their safe release.
At the same time as the clashes, a caller to a local radio station who claimed to be one of the gunmen holding the hostages said they will behead two foreign captives unless the troops were pull back.
The rebels said the rebels from the Abu Sayyaf militia suffered an undetermined number of casualties in the clash in the interior of Jolo island but that it appears to be a limited encounter.
“According to the information I have, some of the kidnappers tried to sneak out of the cordon and this must have triggered the firefight,” provincial governor Abdusakur Tan said.
Abu Sayyaf guerrillas have held the hostages in the Jolo stronghold, 960 km south of Manila, after kidnapping them from a Malaysian dive resort off Borneo nine days ago, on Easter Sunday.
Tan indicated the clash was a limited one, saying “It’s not yet a full-blown fight.” — AFP