US teener escaped as Abu Sayyaf captors slept

ESCAPE STORY American Kevin Lunsmann (his face intentionally blurred as he is a minor) narrates to soldiers in Zamboanga City his escape from Abu Sayyaf kidnappers in Basilan. AP

ZAMBOANGA CITY—A 14-year-old American who escaped from Abu Sayyaf bandits after five months in captivity wandered without shoes for two days in the jungle, surviving on candies and coconut juice, before villagers found him, officials said on Sunday.

Kevin Eric Lunsmann made his getaway while his kidnappers were sleeping, Mayor Celso Lobregat told reporters.

Exhausted, hungry and still stunned, Lunsmann initially fled from the villagers, said Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo, the Zamboanga City police chief.

“He was in fear so there was a bit of a chase before the villagers convinced him that they were friends,” De Ocampo told The Associated Press. He said the teenager was fine but exhausted and had bruises on his arms and feet.

Initial news reports (not the Philippine Daily Inquirer) had said the teenager was freed by his captors.

“He (Kevin) escaped from his captors two days ago and he was hiding in bushes when he was found,” Mayor Roderick Furigay of Lamitan City in Basilan told the Inquirer. “Instinct told him to follow a river trail until he reached the boundary of Lamitan.”

A happy Christmas

Lobregat said at a news briefing that Lunsmann had told him he escaped while his captors were asleep and that he followed the river “with the idea that he’ll reach the ocean.”

He said the teenager had been flown to Manila and turned over to US officials.

US Ambassador Harry Thomas said the teenager would be reunited with his family soon.

“In this holiday season, nothing makes me happier than knowing that an innocent victim is returned to his family in time for holiday celebrations,” Thomas said. “I also want to acknowledge the courage of Kevin himself, and his family, throughout this long ordeal.”

He said there would be a “speedy investigation and prosecution of all those involved in the kidnapping of American citizens.”

Phone talk

Lobregat said the teenager had talked by phone with his Filipino-American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann.

The boy was kidnapped with his mother and a cousin, Romnick Jakaria, in Zamboanga City on July 12 and taken by boat to nearby Basilan Island.  Gerfa was freed in Maluso town on October 2, while Jakaria was freed in the same town on November 12.

Gerfa, a member of the Sama tribe, was adopted by an American couple when she was young. She returned to Zamboanga City to meet her biological family. She bought a piece of land, planted with coconut trees, on Tigtabon Island here, where she had planned to build a vacation house.

Furigay said the young Lunsmann told him he walked for almost two days and did not know he was already in Barangay (village) Bulingan, 8 kilometers from the Lamitan City proper, on Thursday.

Furigay said the teenager told him he survived by eating candies presumably given him earlier by his captors, and climbing coconut trees to get its fruit, eating its meat and drinking its juice.

A barangay councilman, Kenny Ismail Illul, was planning to fish in the river when he saw the boy running at around 5:30 p.m. on Saturday.

“He followed the boy and found him, terrified, hiding under the thick bushes just near the river,” Furigay said.

Using his limited English, Illul talked to Lunsmann and learned that he was a kidnap victim from Zamboanga City. Illul tried to convince him to come out as he was already in safe hands, “but the boy refused,” Furigay said.

“So Illul called his barangay chair, Mercedita Villarin, to convince the boy,” Furigay said.  Villarin, with policemen and militiamen, went to Sitio (sub-village) Linggisan, 6 kilometers from the village center of Bulingan, to see the teenager.

‘Good guys’

When Villarin’s team arrived at around 7 p.m., the village chairperson called Furigay and had Lunsmann speak with the mayor over the phone.

“I assured him that he was being fetched by good guys and he’ll be brought to authorities that can bring him to his family,” the mayor said. “I met him at the military headquarters around 9 p.m. (Saturday). He looked so skinny, with rashes all over his body.”

Furigay said that when Illul first saw Lunsmann, the teenager’s body was covered with mud. Lunsmann later said he was planning to bathe in the river when Illul saw him.

The captors earlier called the Lunsmann family in Campbell County, Virginia, to demand a ransom. Lobregat said he did not know if any ransom was paid.

‘I did it by myself’

Army Colonel Ricardo Visaya said the kidnappers were believed led by Puruji Indama, an Abu Sayyaf bandit notorious for ransom kidnappings and beheadings.

When Visaya asked the teenager if he was freed, which would indicate that ransom was paid, or escaped, Lunsmann replied that he fled from his captors. “No, I really did it myself,” he quoted Lunsmann as saying.

Ransom kidnappings are blamed mostly on the Abu Sayyaf, an al-Qaeda-linked group on a list of US terrorist organizations.

The Abu Sayyaf, which has less than 400 armed fighters, was founded on Basilan in the 1990s as an offshoot of a violent Moro insurgency that has been raging for decades. Hundreds of US troops have been stationed in the southern Philippines, including Basilan, to train and equip Philippine forces but are barred from local combat.

The escape of Lunsmann came a week after suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen abducted Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, 53, from his seaside house in Zamboanga Sibugay province, near Basilan.

Abu Sayyaf bandits are believed still holding an Indian, a Malaysian and a Japanese on Jolo island. With an AP report

Originally posted: 5:04 pm | Sunday, December 11th, 2011