ZAMBOANGA CITY—Gunmen abducted at least five crewmen of a Vietnamese cargo vessel in southern Philippine waters Friday, authorities said, an area where Islamic militants are on a kidnapping-for-ransom spree.
The attack brings to at least eight the number of people abducted from vessels in the region over the past week, including an elderly German sailor, raising fears authorities are unable to control the worsening piracy problem.
The MV Royal 16 was sailing less than 20 kilometers (12 miles) from Basilan island, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf militants, when it was attacked on Friday morning.
Two crew members, one of whom was wounded, escaped and were rescued by a local cargo ship in the area, authorities added.
“Sea and naval assets [were] already deployed to search and rescue the said kidnap victims,” said regional military spokesman Filemon Tan.
The nationalities of the five crewmen and the identity of the kidnappers were still unknown.
In recent months, the Abu Sayyaf has been accused of kidnapping dozens of Indonesian and Malaysian sailors in waters off the southern Philippines.
On the weekend, an Abu Sayyaf commander claimed responsibility for abducting a 70-year-old German sailor and murdering his wife.
In what maritime experts described as a landmark incident, the captain of a South Korean cargo ship and a Filipino crewman were abducted off their vessel, the first such attack on large merchant vessel.
Abu Sayyaf militants this year beheaded two Canadian hostages after demands for millions of dollars were not met. Most of the Indonesian and Malaysian sailors were released after ransoms were reportedly paid.
However, two more Indonesian sailors were abducted on November 5.
The Abu Sayyaf is a loose network of militants formed in the 1990s with seed money from Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, and has earned millions of dollars from kidnappings-for-ransom.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has launched a military offensive to “destroy” the Abu Sayyaf.
But the militants have defied more than a decade of US-backed similar offensives, surviving in their mountainous and jungle-clad southern island strongholds where they have support from local Muslim communities.
The day before the Philippines will allow Malaysian and Indonesian maritime forces to pursue Islamist kidnappers into its waters, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said following talks with his counterpart from Manila.
Najib made the announcement after a meeting with visiting President Duterte that focused on recurring kidnappings at sea by Philippine-based Islamic militants.
Najib said Duterte had already agreed the measure with Indonesian President Joko Widodo, or “Jokowi.”
“The hot pursuit is a new development. This has been agreed by Duterte and Jokowi, and now with us,” Najib said at a press conference in the Malaysian administrative capital Putrajaya.
The waters between Malaysia’s eastern Sabah state and the southern Philippines have for years seen repeated kidnappings by the Abu Sayyaf militant group.
“We need to stamp out the kidnap-for-ransom groups. It is affecting us, Sabahans and foreigners who visit us,” Najib said. “We have to continue to pursue and interdict them.”