Chinese worker in Malaysia kidnap
Print Edition
A CHINESE national working at a fish farm in eastern Malaysia was kidnapped by gunmen early yesterday and is believed to have been taken to the southern Philippines, where suspected insurgents are holding a Chinese tourist from Shanghai and a Filipino also seized from Malaysia.
Mohamad Bakri Zinin, Malaysia’s national deputy police chief, said five men in military fatigues entered the fish farm before dawn and kidnapped its manager, Yang Zailin, 34.
He said two of the men were believed to have been armed with M16 rifles. Police pursued the kidnappers who fled on boat and exchanged fire at a nearby island, he said.
“However, they managed to escape and were headed to a neighboring country,” Bakri said.
A Philippine security official said Filipino authorities had been notified of the kidnapping. The official said the victim was believed to have been taken to the Mindanao region in the southern Philippines.
Beijing has urged Malaysia to speed up efforts to rescue the man, Xinhua news agency reported.
The spate of kidnappings underline persistent security threats in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo, a popular tourist destination and diving center that is a short boat ride from the southern Philippines, where Muslim militants and kidnap gangs have long found safe haven.
Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman said “drastic measures” were needed to ensure public safety including requiring police permission to enter certain areas.
He also said a curfew will be implemented in parts of the state and sea lanes will be designated for ships and boats in high-risk areas. Police will give details on those measures later, he added.
Last month, militants from the Abu Sayyaf group seized a 28-year-old Shanghai woman and a 40-year-old Filipino hotel receptionist from the Singamata Reef Resort in Sabah and took them by motor boat to their jungle stronghold in the predominantly Muslim province of Sulu, according to Philippine security officials.
Yong Teck Lee, former chief minister of Sabah, blasted security forces for their failure to secure the area and warned that the incident would hurt Malaysia-China relations. “It is a huge embarrassment to our security machinery as it happened very deep inside Malaysia’s territorial waters. The damage (in Malaysia-China ties) will be compounded further,” he said.
Last November, suspected Filipino militants shot and killed a Taiwan tourist and kidnapped his wife from a resort in Sabah. The woman was released a month later in the southern Philippines. Authorities didn’t say whether a ransom was paid, as is usually the case.
Filipino militants are still holding more than a dozen captives, including two European bird watchers who were seized from Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost Philippines province closest to Sabah, in 2012.
The Abu Sayyaf had links to international militant networks, including al-Qaida, but a US-backed Philippine military crackdown has weakened it considerably in recent years.
The group, which is on the US list of terror groups, has about 300 fighters and is now much more focused on ransom kidnappings than global jihad.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
