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Seven Philippine Hostages Freed from Abu Sayyaf Kidnappers
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines, Nov 15 (News Agencies) - Seven emaciated and shell-shocked Filipino hostages were recovered Thursday by Philippine troops from the Abu Sayyaf rebels, but a U.S. missionary couple still being held were said to be in a dire condition.
Tourists Angie Montealegre and Maria Fe Rosadeno, and Sheila Tabunyag, a hospital worker, were found by troops early Thursday in an undisclosed area on southern Basilan island, military southern command chief Lieutenant General Roy Cimatu said.
Plantation workers Abdul Tata Mohammad, Marlon Dagayanon, Joel Abelyon and farmer Romeo Fernando were abandoned late Wednesday by the guerrillas and recovered Thursday noon in the town of Maluso, officials said.
"They were recovered at an undisclosed place in Basilan this morning," Cimatu told reporters. "But I will not tell you how they were recovered because this will affect our ongoing operations."
Three other hostages - U.S. Christian missionary couple Martin and Gracia Burnham and Filipina Deborah Yap - remain in captivity in the jungle-clad terrain of Basilan.
"We are very close in recovering the Americans," Cimatu stressed, noting the recovery of the seven captives Thursday "makes the rescue operations a little easier."
"Now we can concentrate on recovering safely the remaining hostages," he said.
Montealegre and Rosadeno were flown for a debriefing at the military's southern command here, where they told reporters they were forced to convert to Islam and wear traditional Muslim head scarves.
"We converted to Islam," Angie Montealegre, 31, told reporters. "They did not want to see our hair, so they required us to use scarves," she said.
The others are to be airlifted either later Thursday or Friday.
"They are not fine there. They want their family to know they are sick and tired of running," from clashes between pursuing troops and the rebels, a haggard-looking Montealegre said.
Gracia Burnham "is always crying," added Rosadeno, who sat stoically, her face covered with skin rashes.
Rosadeno, 21, was vacationing with her Californian boyfriend Guillermo Sobero at the Dos Palmas resort in the western Philippines when they were seized along with 18 others - including Montealegre and the Burnham couple - by Abu Sayyaf gunmen on May 27.
Tabunyag, a midwife, was captured when the fleeing Abu Sayyaf kidnappers took refuge in Basilan and occupied a hospital there on June 1 while the others were subsequently seized as the Abu Sayyaf were evading the military in the jungles of Basilan.
Sobero was beheaded shortly after the night of June 11, other freed hostages have said.
U.S. authorities have confirmed that a set of skeletal remains recovered on the southern island of Basilan last month were those of the Peru-born American tourist, who was in the process of obtaining a divorce from his American wife.
More than a dozen other Filipino captives were beheaded by the Abu Sayyaf, a ruthless group of self-styled "Islamic freedom fighters" linked by Manila and Washington to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Food was scarce and the hostages were forced to eat root crops, vegetables and bananas as their captors engaged the military in gunbattles that would sometimes last for days, they said.
The two women looked emaciated and Cimatu said they apparently suffered from Stockholm Syndrome, a well-documented psychological phenomenon in which former hostages identify with their captors.
Cimatu earlier said the more than 5,000 troops sent to Basilan were closing in on a small core group of about 70 Abu Sayyaf members remaining out of the band that is holding the hostages.
The rebel column included Abu Sayyaf spokesman Abu Sabaya, who has repeatedly warned he would harm the Burnhams if the offensives were not halted.
The recovery of the hostages came a day after U.S. military commander for the Pacific Admiral Dennis Blair visited the military command in the south to personally assess the conduct of the manhunt.
It also comes as President Gloria Arroyo began a working visit to the United States, during which she will meet with President George W. Bush for talks on anti-terrorism cooperation.
Both the U.S. and Philippine governments say the Abu Sayyaf has links to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, the main U.S. suspect in the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.
Blair on Wednesday met with military commanders here and vowed an all-out U.S. support for the Philippines' war against the Abu Sayyaf, founded in the early 1990s by Muslim firebrand Abdurajak Janjalani.
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