French hostages back home after daring escape

French hostages back home after daring escape

MANILA (Reuters): Two French television journalists flew home from the Philippines on Wednesday after escaping from the Abu Sayyaf rebel captors under cover of darkness and spending a nerve-wracking night hiding in the jungles under pouring rain.

They were among 19 hostages held by the Abu Sayyaf rebels on the southern island of Jolo and said they slipped away in the confusion as the guerrillas fled under the onslaught of a military assault.

Local residents said they feared scores of civilians had been killed in the relentless bombardment of rebel bases, which entered the fifth day on Wednesday.

One woman, fleeing Jolo to nearby Zamboanga, said 10 people attending a wedding party were killed in a direct hit.

Earlier in the day, one man was killed and six were wounded when a bomb exploded on a ferry at Zamboanga, the military's staging area for its assault. Police said the victim appeared to have been holding the bomb when it went off prematurely.

Jean-Jacques Le Garrec, 46, and Roland Madura, 49, looked well, happy but tense as they relived their ordeal at a press conference in Manila, sitting next to President Joseph Estrada, beaming from the boost their fortuitous return has given him.

Estrada said he was confident the other hostages would soon be released, including an American, Jeffrey Schilling.

"There are serious and promising efforts to seek the release of all the hostages," armed forces chief Gen. Angelo Reyes told the news conference at Manila's presidential palace.

"The directive of the president is we should finish the job tomorrow or latest within one week."

Le Garrec said a group of Filipino evangelists also taken hostage were safe and in good shape, although their leader, Wilde Almeda, was weak from 40 days of fasting.

The other captives, held by separate rebel factions, are three Malaysians and another Filipino.

Bombing

Le Garrec, a cameraman for France-2 television, later told Reuters he and Madura would have been freed on Saturday if the military had not launched the assault. He said as far as he knew no rebel was hit by the bombardment although many civilians were.

"It was definitely programmed for last Saturday and if it was not for the military intervention, we would have been freed," he said.

"As far as the Abu Sayyaf group is concerned...I think it was just getting money and banditry. But I am afraid that the very strong military reaction was just giving them some reason to show that the way they are treated is something really very bad.

"The bombing has not made one member of Abu Sayyaf be wounded. It's just the civil population that is hurt by the bombings, it is a reaction not against the Abu Sayyaf but against the Muslim population of the island."

The government has said seven guerrillas and four civilians have been killed in the assault on the Abu Sayyaf, which claims to be fighting for an independent Muslim state in the south of the Roman Catholic Philippines.

The military came upon the two Frenchmen on a road in the southwest of Jolo earlier on Wednesday.

They were captured on July 9 on Jolo when they went up to the rebel lair to interview Abu Sayyaf leaders who were at that time holding several Westerners and others hostages. Most have been released, and the rebels have received millions of dollars in ransom.

Le Garrec said the assault, however, aided their escape.

"We took the opportunity of the military pressure...imposed on the Abu Sayyaf group (which forced them) to move all the time and especially to move at night. We took the opportunity of last night's move when we left at seven (pm) from the place we were. And when we got across a road, we took the opportunity of the deep darkness to...escape.

"Everybody was afraid because getting across the road, we could be seen by the military... In that big mess, we took the opportunity of jumping on the side. We hid for some minutes and after that we ran on the road."

The two were to fly out of Manila later on Wednesday to Frankfurt from where they were to be taken on a French government flight to Paris.

The hostage crisis has dragged on for almost five months and humiliated Estrada's administration. His decision to send in the military was criticized, notably by French President Jacques Chirac, because of the potential danger to the hostages.