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Two Canadians abducted by gunmen in Philippines




Gunmen kidnapped two Canadians, including a former mining executive with Calgary ties, a Norwegian resort manager and a Filipino woman from a popular resort island in the southern Philippines, the army said Tuesday.

Capt. Alberto Caber said the four were taken at gunpoint during a raid late Monday night on the upscale Oceanview resort on Samal island, near Davao City, the largest city on Mindanao island in the southern Philippines.
The army went after the 11 culprits by air and sea, but failed to track them down in their two motorboats.
Military and police officials were surprised by the latest attack, which came as a reminder of volatile security in the south despite recent peace initiatives with Islamist rebels.
Caber said the abducted foreigners were identified as John Ridsdel and Robert Hall from Canada and Kjartan Sekkingstad, the Norwegian manager of the resort. The Filipino woman was not identified.
Nicolas Doire, a spokesman for Canada’s foreign affairs department, said they were aware of the kidnapping but declined to comment or release information that “may compromise ongoing efforts and risk endangering the safety of the Canadian citizens abroad.”
Shirley Anthony, a spokesman for Calgary-based TVI Pacific Inc, confirmed that Ridsdel, a semi-retired consultant, was among those taken by the gunmen.
“We are still learning more about the situation,” she said.
Ridsdel had served as chief operating officer of mining company TVI Resource Development Philippines Inc., a subsidiary of TVI Pacific.
He lives in Puerto Galera, PhiliPpines, according to his Facebook page.
His most recent tweet, on Feb. 14, was a link to a Forbes article about the world’s top 20 places to retire (the Philippines was #16) and he wrote: “Couldn’t agree more! Especially Puerto Galera.”
The Davao region has been relatively peaceful for more than a decade. In 2014, a peace agreement with the largest Muslim rebel group in the south ended 45 years of conflict that had killed about 120,000 people and displaced two million.
“Four people were taken but we do not know what group was behind the attack,” Caber told reporters. He said there were about 30 foreign tourists at the resort at the time of the raid.
“It appeared the foreigners were the targets, they were not taken at random,” he said.
Military sources said the gunmen spoke English and Tagalog, the language spoken widely in the Philippines.
“Two Japanese tourists tried to intervene but failed,” one of the sources said. The gunmen fled towards the Mindanao mainland with their captives, the source said.
Three navy ships were sent to search and intercept the gunmen’s boat, while ground units were also alerted to locate possible landing sites in southeastern Mindanao, an army commander said.
In 2001, al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf Islamist militants tried but failed to kidnap foreign tourists on Samal island’s Pearl Farm resort. Three security men died fighting the attackers.

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