Security forces hunt gunmen who abducted three foreigners from luxury southern Philippines resort
Two Japanese tourists tried to stop the kidnapping of two Canadians and a Norwegian - but failed.
Gunmen have kidnapped two Canadian tourists, a Norwegian employee and a Filipina from a luxury resort island in the conflict-wracked southern Philippines, while other foreigners narrowly escaped, police said.
The abductions add to a string of kidnappings of foreigners in the south since the early 1990s, most often by Islamic militants seeking to extort ransoms, although the latest culprits were not immediately identified.
Police said armed men sailed two motorboats into a marina on Samal island just before midnight on Monday and seized the four from aboard yachts, apparently knowing exactly who they wanted to abduct, police said.
“They appeared to target the foreigners. They went straight for the yachts,” Superintendent Antonio Rivera, a local police spokesman, said.
He said a Japanese couple was also nearly abducted but the pair fought back, while some of the more than two dozen guests jumped into the water to escape.