MANILA, April 15 (Reuters) - The Philippine government has sent a group of Muslim clerics to try to convince Islamic militants to release one of two Red Cross workers held captive for three months, officials said on Wednesday. Italian Eugenio Vagni, 62, has been suffering from a hernia and has difficulty walking as his captors, from the Abu Sayyaf group, keep moving around to elude security forces pursuing them, provincial Governor Abdusakur Tan told reporters. He said his information was said based on telephone calls made by the hostages to Red Cross officials in Manila last week. "I am hoping the religious leaders could convince the Abu Sayyaf to free the sick hostage on humanitarian grounds," Tan told reporters. "I was told he needed urgent surgery due to hernia." Vagni and Swiss national Andreas Notter of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have been held since Jan. 15 on the remote southern island of Jolo, a bastion of Islamic rebels in the mainly Roman Catholic state. Two weeks ago the rebels freed Filipina Red Cross engineer Mary-Jean Lacaba. Tan was speaking after a meeting with Interior Secretary Ronaldo Puno and security officials to draw up contingency measures to end the crisis. Puno said the government has rejected demands by the Abu Sayyaf to pull out security forces from three towns on Jolo and has ordered troops to step up pressure against the kidnappers. The Abu Sayyaf, a small but violent militant group based on Jolo and nearby Basilan, had earlier demanded that troops relax the tight cordon they were keeping around the rebel hideout before talks for the hostages' release could start. The rebel group, with links to the Southeast Asian regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah and to al Qaeda, has been blamed for the worst terrorist attack in the Philippines, the bombing of a ferry in Manila Bay in 2004 that killed 100 people. It is also notorious for high-profile kidnappings and large ransoms and has a history of beheading captives. (For a factbox on the Abu Sayyaf, click on [ID:nMAN463434]) (Reporting by Manny Mogato; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Anti-riot policemen block a theater artist members who protest outside the US Embassy in Manila April 1, 2009 to dramatize the sufferings and passion of the people as the predominantly Catholic ...
