{"id":5937,"date":"2014-04-03T15:45:40","date_gmt":"2014-04-03T07:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=5937"},"modified":"2014-04-03T16:10:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-03T08:10:02","slug":"authorities-say-chinese-tourist-and-hotel-worker-kidnapped-from-resort-in-eastern-malaysia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/04\/03\/authorities-say-chinese-tourist-and-hotel-worker-kidnapped-from-resort-in-eastern-malaysia\/","title":{"rendered":"Authorities say Chinese tourist and hotel worker kidnapped from resort in eastern Malaysia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/shutterstock_135960143-1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-5945\" alt=\"shutterstock_135960143 (1)\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/shutterstock_135960143-1.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"302\" srcset=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/shutterstock_135960143-1.jpg 500w, https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/shutterstock_135960143-1-300x181.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia &#8211; Suspected Filipino insurgents seized a Chinese tourist and a hotel worker from a dive resort in eastern Malaysia and then fled by speed boat, Malaysian and Philippine officials said Thursday.<\/p>\n<p>The incident took place late Wednesday in the Semporna district of Sabah state, which is on the Malaysian side of Borneo island.<\/p>\n<p>The raid underlines persistent security threats in Sabah, a popular tourist destination and dive spot that is a short boat ride from the southern Philippines, where Muslim militants and kidnap gangs have long found safe haven.<\/p>\n<p>It will likely add to negative sentiment in China over the safety of its citizens in Malaysia, which is still hunting for a jetliner that went missing March 8 with 153 Chinese citizens on board.<\/p>\n<p>Six men armed with pistols raided the Singamata Reef Resort, a midrange resort popular with Chinese tourists, according to a police report sent to the Associated Press by a security official.<\/p>\n<p>It said the Chinese victim was a 28-year-old woman from Shanghai, while the hotel worker was a 40-year-old Philippines national.<\/p>\n<p>A receptionist at the hotel declined to comment, as did police in the district.<\/p>\n<p>A Philippines intelligence official said the attackers were believed to be from the Abu Sayaff group, a militant Muslim group that claims allegiance to al-Qaida and has been implicated in other kidnappings for ransom in the region before.<\/p>\n<p>Last November, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants shot and killed a Taiwanese tourist and kidnapped his wife from a resort in the Semporna area. The women was released a month later in the southern Philippines. Authorities didn&#8217;t say whether a ransom was paid. Such deals are normally not immediately disclosed to the media, if at all<\/p>\n<p>In 2000, Abu Sayyaf gunmen crossed the porous maritime border with Malaysia in speedboats and snatched 21 European tourists and Malaysian and Filipino workers from Malaysia&#8217;s Sipadan diving resort and brought them to the southern Philippines, where the captives were later released in exchange for ransom.<\/p>\n<p>Militants in the southern Philippines are holding more than a dozen captives, including two European bird watchers who were seized from Tawi-Tawi, the southernmost Philippines province closest to Sabah, in 2012.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>Gomez reported from Manila. Chris Brummitt in Kuala Lumpur also contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; &nbsp; KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia &#8211; Suspected Filipino insurgents seized a Chinese tourist and a hotel worker from a dive &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":5945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,17],"tags":[561,1663,851],"class_list":["post-5937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-w","tag-as","tag-kidnapping","tag-malaysia","mauthors-eileen-ng","mauthors-jim-gomez","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}