Indonesian sailor escapes Abu Sayyaf

Indonesian sailor escapes Abu Sayyaf

Agencies, Zamboanga, Philippines

An Indonesian sailor held hostage for nine months on a southern
Philippine island by the Moro extremist Abu Sayyaf group escaped
from his captors and told the military on Friday that another
Indonesian had apparently died of illness while in captivity.

The sailor, identified as Julkipli, told The Associated Press
he escaped in the forests of Jolo, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold where
he and two other Indonesians were kidnapped last year. He ran for
three hours until he reached a battalion of Philippine marines
late on Thursday.

The marines said they at first thought he was a rebel and
Julkipli said he thought they were Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

Julkipli, 27, said he was told by his captors that one of his
colleagues had died from a lingering illness. He said he could
not personally confirm their account. The Indonesian Embassy also
said it could not confirm it.

Lt. Gen. Narciso Abaya, chief of the military's Southern
Command, said Julkipli was able to escape because the rebels were
going hungry because of continuous military pursuit.

"Even those who are guarding (the hostages) are already on low
morale because they are not eating, they cannot sleep, they are
always walking. So he was able to get a chance to escape," Abaya
said.

"I am okay. But it's really hard to be in the mountains with
the rebels," Julkipli said in halting English as he hobbled into
a waiting ambulance shortly after he was airlifted to the
regional military headquarters in Zamboanga.

"I feel happy. I ate plenty of bananas, fruits, fish," he said
when asked how he survived his ordeal.

Before he was whisked away for a medical examination, he said
he desperately wanted to talk to his family in Semarang, Central
Java.

He said he was able to talk by telephone to his wife, whom he
married just before he was kidnapped, and that she "just cried
and cried".

The three Indonesian tugboat crewmen and four Filipino members
of the evangelist group Jehovah's Witnesses were kidnapped
separately on Jolo last year. The Indonesians were taken at
gunpoint from a Singapore-owned tugboat on June 17 by 11 men in
military fatigues riding in three speedboats off Jolo.

Two Filipino male evangelists were beheaded by the kidnappers
in August, and the Abu Sayyaf - a group labeled terrorist by the
United States for a series of kidnappings and beheadings - has
threatened to kill the remaining victims if the military mounts a
rescue operation.

Three years ago, Abu Sayyaf guerrillas crossed into
neighboring Malaysia by boat and took 21 Western tourists and
Asian workers from a dive resort. All but one were subsequently
freed, reportedly in exchange for huge ransoms.

Other Abu Sayyaf rebels took 102 hostages, including three
Americans, in a yearlong kidnapping spree.

The Abu Sayyaf has been loosely linked to al-Qaeda. A six-
month U.S.-Philippine counterterrorism exercise last year on
neighboring Basilan island has been credited with breaking up the
extremist group and killing and capturing some leaders and
members. Remnants of the group, including chieftain Khadaffy
Janjalani, have fled farther south to Jolo island.

Abaya said there are about 400 Abu Sayyaf guerrillas left on
Jolo.