Red Cross hostages air fear, anger over deadly Philippine clashes

Red Cross hostages air fear, anger over deadly Philippine clashes Manila  - Three international Red Cross staff being held captive by Muslim militants in the southern Philippines were frightened and outraged when government troops clashed with their captors this week in an apparent bid to rescue them.

The hostages - Swiss Andreas Notter, Italian Eugenio Vagni and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba - were hysterical when they talked by phone with Senator Richard Gordon, chairman of the Philippine National Red Cross, the Philippine Daily Inquirer said Friday.

Lacaba said it was difficult for them to remain calm after they witnessed the deadly clashes between Muslim Abu Sayyaf rebels and government soldiers in Indanan town on Jolo island, 1,000 kilometres south of Manila.

"You don't know where a bullet will hit you, ... your head, your back, ... you can see the firefight," the Inquirer quoted her as telling Gordon Thursday. "It was terrible. We saw the gunbattles in front of us. We saw the killings. It was really terrible."

"We have been here for 64 days," she added. "I don't know if we are ever going to be free."

The three were abducted January 15 after visiting the Jolo provincial jail, where they were overseeing a water and sanitation project.

Vagni was crying and shouting at Gordon when it was his turn to talk with the senator, the Inquirer said.

"Why does the government want us to die?" Vagni shouted. "I don't understand! I don't understand!"

He was not consoled by Gordon's assurances that he was doing his best to secure their release. When the senator told him to remain strong, a sobbing Vagni replied, "We have to be strong. We will be stronger. But if the military will not pull out, we are going to die."

Notter also did not hide his dismay over the government's failure to free them and was in a rage over the military's offensive on the Abu Sayyaf, which he said was a "completely wrong move."

"The situation is very bad," he said. "It is catastrophic! I really cannot understand what the government is doing. Rescue? The government sent the military to rescue us? No! These guys came to kill us, have us killed, not rescue us!"

Notter expressed resentment over the Philippine government, noting that the International Committee of the Red Cross has been undertaking humanitarian missions in the country since 1982.

"Now they are going to kill us?" he asked.

Thursday's telephone call, which lasted for more than one hour, was the first contact with the hostages since the fighting on Monday and Tuesday, which killed three marines and six Abu Sayyaf rebels. Nineteen marines were also wounded.

Gordon said Abu Sayyaf leader Albader Parad, who was wounded in the fighting, had agreed to free one of the hostages if government forces pulled back from the rebel encampment in Indanan.

But Parad also threatened to behead one of the hostages if the military continue to pursue them.

Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Torres, a military spokesman, said government troops would be repositioned away from the Abu Sayyaf rebels "to allow the exhaustion of peaceful means for the safe release of the victims."

But no formal order for the troop movement had been given.

The Abu Sayyaf has been blamed for some of the worst terrorist attacks and high-profile kidnappings in the Philippines. In the past, the rebels have beheaded hostages, such as an American tourist in 2001, when the government refused to give in to their demands. (dpa)

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