PH expects handover of 21 peacekeepers despite shelling-military spokesman

An image grab taken from a video uploaded on YouTube on Thursday, March 7, 2013, allegedly shows six uniformed members of the United Nations Disengagement Force (UNDOF), who have been seized by rebels the previous day, speaking at an undisclosed location. Syrian rebels held hostage 21 UN Filipino peacekeepers patroling the sensitive armistice line with Israel for a second day, defying a chorus of international condemnation and calls for their release. AFP PHOTO/YOUTUBE

MANILA — The Philippines still expects its 21 UN peacekeepers held hostage in the Golan Heights to be freed despite shelling by Syrian forces that scuttled a handover, a military spokesman said Saturday.

A UN convoy that entered the Syrian village of Jamla on Friday to pick up the Filipinos abducted by rebels pulled out when the Syrian army shelled the area, according to a human rights watchdog.

Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said in Manila that the shelling had since stopped and the UN negotiators had resumed planning another arrangement with the rebels for the hostage handover.

“After the shelling the two parties (UN and the rebels) resumed coordinating the arrangements for their release,” Cabangbang told Agence France-Presse.

“The planned venue of the handover was not actually shelled. It was the route that they planned to take.”

The negotiators from the UN Disengagement Observer Force had no reason to believe that any of the hostages, who were abducted on Wednesday, were harmed by the shelling, Cabangbang added.

He said the force believed the rebels remained committed to freeing the hostages.

However, Cabangbang he said he had no details on the new arrangement.

The UN force has been tasked since 1974 with ensuring a ceasefire between Israel and Syria, and the hostages are part of a 300-member Philippine Army force deployed there since November last year.

On Wednesday, the rebel Yarmuk Martyrs brigade claimed the capture of the Filipinos soldiers.

The rebels said they would hold them until troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad withdrew from the area of Jamla, which lies east of the ceasefire line.

On Friday, the rebels called for a ceasefire, to allow the evacuation of the peacekeepers.