AT least 22 soldiers were wounded in a fresh clash with the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, hours after the Islamic militants released a retired Italian priest who had been held hostage for six months, the military reported on Saturday.
Major Filemon Tan Jr., spokesperson for the Western Mindanao Command, said government troops clashed with large concentrations of Abu Sayyaf bandits twice in separate villages of Tipo-tipo town.
He said heavy fighting first broke out at about 8 a.m. while army soldiers from different units of the Army’s 44th Infantry Battalion chanced upon a still undetermined numbers of bandits while they were patrolling Barangay Sinlangkum.
Tan said the army troops engaged in heavy fighting with the terrorist groups are being led by Lt. Col. Tommy Crosby Jr. supported by Alpha, Bravo and Charlie Companies under Lt. Licenia, Lt. Falcatan and Lt. Robles.
The second clash occurred at Sitio Bayoko where security forces were still battling with around 120 armed men at Sitio Bayoko.
The clashes occurred hours after Rolando del Torchio was found inside the ferry “KC Beatrice” at the Jolo Port around 7:30 p.m. Friday.
The 56-year-old Del Torchio spent the night at a military hospital in Zamboanga City, but was flown out of the city via a plane chartered by the Italian embassy in Manila.
“The victim is emaciated. He has lost a lot of weight compared to what we saw in his old pictures,” Tan told reporters. “He is okay otherwise.”
The Italian was held captive by the Abu Sayyaf group after he was snatched at gunpoint at his pizza restaurant in Dipolog City last October.
“The ASG was behind this kidnapping,” Tan said, adding that he did not know if any ransom was paid to secure Del Torchio’s release.
Del Torchio had worked as a missionary for the international organization PIME in the south from 1998 before retiring in 2000 to set up his restaurant, colleagues told AFP shortly after he was abducted.
The gunmen are holding nearly 20 other foreign hostages, all but one of them abducted since 2014.
The Abu Sayyaf last month posted a video of two Canadians, a Norwegian and a Filipina they kidnapped in September last year and set an April 8 deadline for ransom to be paid or the foreigners would be killed. The deadline passed Friday with no word on their fates.
The latest groups of victims were 10 Indonesian and four Malaysian crew members snatched over the past two weeks from a tugboat and a cargo ship near the southern Philippines.