Philippine hostages make appeal

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Three aid workers taken hostage in the Philippines have made a radio appeal for talks to secure their release.

The hostages from the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) said they were unharmed and in regular contact with local ICRC officials.

But they told the radio station they did not know what their captors wanted.

The three were seized by armed gunmen on 15 January on Jolo Island in the southern Philippines where they were working on a sanitation project.

"[I appeal] to the government and to the ICRC to do their best there so that this ordeal will be solved. Please try to... deal with them to try to find a way to pull us out," said one of the hostages Eugenio Vagni, 62, of Italy said on-air.

'Guests'

Mr Vagni said they had not suffered any harm, not even bruises, and that their captors understood that the three were doing humanitarian work.

"We were treated like guests. We eat what they eat and if we need something, they go out and get it for us. We are all well," he said on DZEC radio.

Another of the hostages, 38-year-old Andreas Notter, of Switzerland, said: "We hope that the concerned authorities and the ICRC choose to negotiate with the group... and we hope that they'll take this effort seriously.

"We don't have a clear picture of what the demands are," he said, adding their keepers had got them medicine for colds and diarrhoea.

The Filipina hostage, Mary-Jean Lacaba, 37, asked the government to negotiate with the abductors "so we can go back to our work".

She said it was raining constantly, and appealed to her family to pray for her.

The ICRC workers are believed to have been handed by their kidnappers to Abu Sayyaf, a group of Islamist militants known for kidnapping foreigners and Christians for huge ransoms.

The police and military say that more than 380 Abu Sayyaf fighters - down from 1,000 in 2002 - are hiding mainly in the hinterlands of predominantly Muslim Jolo and Basilan islands.

The poor and underdeveloped area is home to decades-old Muslim separatist rebellions.

Bargaining

An Abu Sayyaf commander, Albader Parad, said in the interview that if the government wanted to open negotiations, it had to pull the military out of the southern area - something the military has refused to do.

He also reiterated his call for Vice-President Noli de Castro and other prominent figures, including foreign ambassadors, to act as negotiators - something Philippines President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has refused to allow.

The head of the government's hostage crisis committee has rejected any troop pullout and said he did not want any negotiators from outside the province.

Alain Aeschlimann, the ICRC's Geneva-based head of operations for Asia, earlier said the agency was speaking to the hostages "on a relatively regular basis".

He urged caution in discussing the situation so as not to jeopardise the safety of his staff.

Senator Richard Gordon, head of the Philippine National Red Cross, said the kidnappers were not in a position to make demands, reiterating the humanitarian agency's policy on no ransom and no negotiation.

"They should free the captives without any conditions," he said.