6 kidnapping cases recorded since January, say police

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–For the first two months of 2014, cases of kidnapping have already reached six, police said Friday.

Senior Superintendent Renato Gumban, Anti-Kidnapping Group chief, said during the second anniversary of the PNP AKG in Camp Crame that ‎among the six kidnapping incidents, four occurred in Mindanao.

But of the total count from January to February 2014, two kidnap victims have already been freed.

For the entire year of 2013, 50 kidnapping ‎cases, including those perpetrated by organized crime groups, terrorist groups and other individuals, were recorded.

Of the 50, at least 20 kidnapping were masterminded by Mindanao-based terrorist groups.

One of the unsolved cases was the abduction of two European birdwatchers by armed men in Sitio Look-Look, Barangay (village) Parangan in Tawi-Tawi last February 2012.

Dutch Elwold Horn and Swiss Lorenzo Vinciguerra, who are both wildlife photographers, are being held by the Abu Sayyaf Group and were last seen in Patikul town in Sulu.

But Gumban pointed out that they solved 21 of the 50 cases, showing 42-percent of crime solution efficiency.

To address rampant kidnapping in the Philippines, ‎in which most were linked to terrorism and insurgencies in Mindanao, police Intelligence chief proposed a new strategy.

Deputy Director General Ager Ontog, ‎National Intelligence Coordinating Agency chief, said the AKG and NICA must have a formal coordination to counter‎ increasing kidnapping statistics.

Earlier Friday, Filipino-Algerian filmmakers Nadjoua and Linda Bansil were released by the Abu Sayyaf group.

‎The Bansil sisters were seized on June 22, 2013 by at least 10 armed men in Patikul town while doing a film on the sultanate of Sulu.

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