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.