The Bansils were behind the 2013 Gawad Urian-nominated short film “Bohe, Sons of the Waves,” with Najoua as director and Linda as her assistant. The film is about a group of Badjao boys who live in a small land in Southern Luzon.
On Saturday, the sisters were filming a “documentary about the Sultanate of Sulu” when kidnapped, Col. Jose Johriel Cenabre, commander of Joint Task Force Sulu, said.
The Bansils were riding a passenger jeepney on their way back to Jolo town when flagged down and taken by at least 10 armed men in the village of Liang in Patikul at around 9 a.m. Saturday.
Initial investigation revealed that the abductors were members of an Abu Sayyaf faction Aljini Mundoc, also known as Ninok Sapari, and Bensaudi Mundoc.
Reports reaching the Philippine Daily Inquirer show that the victims’ family was trying to establish contact with the captors.
Although having an Algerian mother, the sisters were born Filipinos. They studied Mass Communications at the Ateneo de Zamboanga University.
Sheron Dayoc, the director of the independent film “Halaw – Ways of the Sea,” said the sisters were active members of the Amnesty International when they were still in college.
Charlie Saceda of the Peace and Conflict Journalism Network based in Cebu City said the sisters underwent training with them in 2006 and 2007 “while they were students of the Ateneo de Zamboanga.”
But Abraham Idjirani, spokesperson of the Sultanate of Sulu, said they did not know the Bansil sisters were doing a documentary film on the sultanate.
“We just learned about this when some people started calling. There was no prior advise to us for their planned documentary there. Had we known, we could have provided them with proper security people or local contacts that can protect them,” Idjirani said.
He said his group was coordinating with their local contacts to help locate the sisters and work for the immediate release.
Cenabre, on the other hand, said the Bansil sisters did not “coordinate” with authorities.
“We don’t know when they arrived here. We don’t know their contacts and we don’t even know where they stayed here,” Cenabre said.
Cenabre said although the duo looked more like foreigners, “they are Filipinas.”
Medmessiah Bansil, a brother of the victims, appealed for prayers for the safety of his sisters.
In a short statement posted on his Facebook account, Medmessiah said: “Both my sisters got abducted. My sisters are filmmakers and I am asking friends, family to please pray for their release. May Allah bless them.”
Medmessiah also called on “everyone to be discreet with any information that you get. This moment is very crucial.”
Governor Mujiv Hataman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao told the Philippine Daily Inquirer that he has directed the local police including the regional office as well as local government units to determine who are the point persons and contacts of the Bansil sisters prior and during their film making activities in Sulu.
“We need to know who they dealt with, who contacted them to do this film. It is not that we are restricting them but due to past incidents, coordination is very important here,” Hataman said.