Reuters AlertNet Lite - FACTBOX-Five facts on kidnapping cases in Philippines

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FACTBOX-Five facts on kidnapping cases in Philippines

28 Mar 2007 08:40:45 GMT
Source: Reuters

March 28 (Reuters) - A man who started a day care centre in the Philippine capital Manila seized a bus full of school children and teachers on Wednesday, in the latest dramatic kidnapping to hit the Southeast Asian nation.

Here are five facts on kidnapping in the Philippines:

- Kidnapping for ransom has become so common over the past three decades that the Philippines has been dubbed the kidnapping capital of the world, with small-scale "freelance" kidnappers aiming to make money operating alongside politically-motivated groups.

- Terrorist group Abu Sayyaf has been accused of making an industry out of kidnapping.In 2000 and 2001 it kidnapped dozens of local and western tourists in Malaysia and the Philippines, beheading some of the hostages. It also reportedly uses kidnapping to recruit local children.

- Pentagon, a gang active among Muslim communities on the southern island of Mindanao was blamed for a series of abductions in 2002, including two Chinese engineers working on a Japanese-funded irrigation project who were late killed. The group has been blacklisted by the U.S. State Department.

- Another notorious group is the Kuratong Baleleng Gang, a group originally based on Mindanao. Created by the military in 1986 to combat communist rebels, it turned to kidnappings and organised crime before 11 members were gunned down in 1995 as part of an anti-kidnapping drive by the defunct Presidential Anti-Crime Commission (PACC).

- In 2002, as President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave the police one year to subdue 21 identified kidnap gangs whose activities were driving away foreign investors, Manila's police chief said that foreign kidnap gangs from India, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia were also operating in the country. Sources: Reuters

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Last updated:Wed Mar 28 08:46:19 2007