June 5, 2001, Philippine Headline News, Sayyaf Eludes Cordon w/ 59 Hostages,

June 5, 2001, Philippine Headline News, Sayyaf Eludes Cordon w/ 59 Hostages,

Manila, June 4, 2001 - The Abu Sayyaf guerillas now has up to 50 hostages, including nurses, from a hospital they occupied in southern Philippines aside from nine captives taken from a tourist resort.

National Security Adviser Roilo Golez told ABS-CBN television "It is possible that they might be holding up to 50 civilians, some of them nurses," taken from the hospital in Lamitan town in Basilan island before they broke through a military cordon and fled.

The Abu Sayyaf rebels had first taken 20 hostages, including three Americans, from a tourist resort off the western island of Palawan on May 27.

Nine captives fled while the rebels were battling the military as they were holed up in the hospital and the captors slaughtered two others.

The Abu Sayyaf gunmen might have taken with them up to 50 hostages from about 200 people they held captive while in the hospital, Golez said

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez and Philippine National Police chief Leandro Mendoza will file multiple murder and kidnapping charges against the Abu Sayyaf, a radio report said.

This developed after the bandits beheaded two of the Filipino hostages they kidnapped at the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan on May 27. Military offensives over the weekend cornered the bandits in Lamitan until their escape yesterday.

The raging gunbattle left more than a dozen soldiers dead and 100 more injured.

Government troops have rescued 9 hostages, including an 8-year-old boy.