Residents flee Philippine town

Residents flee Philippine town

ILIGAN (AFP): Several hundred residents began fleeing yesterday from a southern Philippine town where Moslem gunmen are holding an Irish Roman Catholic priest hostage, local sources said.

The residents of Tangkal fear an armed confrontation was imminent with security forces, Moslem guerrillas and the kidnappers' armed sympathizers engaged in a tense standoff in the mainly Moslem town over Monsignor Desmond Hartford, said the sources, who would not be named.

Women and children were leaving their homes, leaving the men to guard their properties, they said.

Hartford, 54, of Dublin, was seized near the town of Kolambugan on Oct. 27 by former Moslem separatist guerrillas who want the government to produce soft loans and other benefits promised them when they surrendered six years ago.