MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Philippine officials say they have received no word from abductors of a naturalized American woman, her teenage son and their Filipino nephew a day after they were seized by suspected Muslim militants.
More than a dozen gunmen seized Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, her 14-year-old son and 19-year-old nephew from their relatives’ house they were visiting on an island village near southern Zamboanga city.
The head of a government crisis committee said Wednesday that authorities are verifying reports that the hostages were taken aboard two boats to nearby Basilan Island.
The area is a stronghold of the al-Qaida-linked Abu Sayyaf extremists who have been blamed for ransom kidnappings and deadly bombings over the past two decades.
