Prosperidad: Tribal gunmen holding dozens of people captive in a Philippine jungle were given a firm warning by the government on Saturday as the crisis entered a third day, officials said.
The small group of gunmen raided a school in a small farming village in the Agusan valley region of the southern island of Mindanao on Thursday and took 75 hostages, including children and relatives of their local rivals.
Twenty-eight hostages, including 18 children were later freed.
"I outlined to them a certain scenario that would happen if they refused to release the remaining hostages," local social worker Josefina Bajade, the chief government negotiator in the crisis, said.
She would not discuss what this scenario would be.
About 400 soldiers and police have deployed in the area amid concern that the kidnappers would harm the hostages, who have been forced to sleep on the ground due to the primitive conditions there, according to government officials who visited the area.
"There are 47 hostages still -- 45 men and two women," said Agusan del Sur province Vice Governor Santiago Cane, who accompanied the negotiator to the gunmen`s hideout on Friday, when they also delivered food.
He said that force was not being contemplated at the moment to bring an end to the hostage crisis.
"We will continue to negotiate in the hope of producing results," he added.
Bajade visited the gunmen`s hideout on a mountainous area early Saturday but returned to this nearby town grim-faced in mid-morning.
She said the gunmen refused to release any more hostages. She would not discuss their position further, clarifying only that the government had not set a deadline.
Authorities have identified the gunmen as members of the Manobo tribe, and said they were wanted on charges of murder and other crimes.
The abduction was linked to a long-running clan dispute involving another Manobo family, some of whose members are among those still in the hands of the kidnappers, Cane said.
He said the gunmen`s leader, Ondo Perez, told the negotiator his group was willing to end the hostage crisis if the government arrested his local rival Joel Tubay and his armed followers, who the official said also have outstanding arrest warrants for murder.
The kidnappers were wary of retribution against their clan if they surrendered and the Tubay group remained at large, he added.
Cane said the two clans have a long-standing dispute over land that he said has led to several killings. A relative of Perez was among the most recent victims, he added.
The hostages are held in an abandoned hut in a clearing of a thickly forested mountain about two kilometres (1.2 miles) from the village where they were abducted.
The mass kidnapping was part of a wave of violence that has swept the southern Philippines, where Muslim and communist insurgents mix with warring clans, pirates and corrupt officials.
Islamic militants on the southern island of Basilan are holding three other hostages after beheading another captive on Wednesday.
Maguindanao province meanwhile remained under martial law following the massacre last month of 57 people, allegedly by the heads of a Muslim clan that had ruled the area since 2001.
Bureau Report
