Abu Sayyaf hostages in Philippines make video plea

  04 May 2016    Read: 1135
Abu Sayyaf hostages in Philippines make video plea
Three hostages being held by militants in the Philippines have appeared in a video pleading for their governments to meet the captors` demands.
The Canadian, Norwegian and Filipino men are being held by Abu Sayyaf, the Islamist militant separatists who last week beheaded Canadian John Ridsdel.

In the video, the hostages say if the demands are not met "we will be executed like our friend John".

Abu Sayyaf has previously demanded a multi-million dollar ransom.

The Philippines and Canadian government have said they will not give in to ransom demands. The Philippines has also launched a military operation against the militant group.

Mr Ridsdel was kidnapped from a marina near the city of Davao last September along with another Canadian, Robert Hall, his Filipina partner Marites Flor, and Kjartan Sekkingstad, a Norwegian.

They were taken to an Abu Sayyaf stronghold of the remote island of Jolo where Mr Ridsdel was killed on 25 April after a ransom deadline passed.

The new video, reported on Tuesday by the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist media, showed the three hostages with six gunmen standing behind them.

A masked militant warns Canada and the Philippines that the three remaining hostages would be killed "if you procrastinate once again".

Mr Hall is shown saying the governments were being ordered to "meet the demand" of the kidnappers, without giving further details.

He also asked the Philippines government to "stop shooting at us and trying to kill us. These guys are going to do a good job of that."

Mr Sekkingstad says that "if the demand is not met we will be executed like our friend John was a few days ago".



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