Three Pinoy Engineers Were Released After Being Held Hostages Without Ransom
CAPTIVE – These Filipinos and one South Korean engineer were released after being held hostages by armed men in Libya for ten months.
The hostages were seized in the Southern part of Libya back in July 2018. They project site was for the Great Man-made River Project in Libya.
The four hostages were primarily working at the site as civil engineers.
former Chargé d’affaires – diplomatic official of the state – revealed information about the incident to Libya Mardomel Melicor.
According to an article from Philippine News Agency,
The armed men entered the project site where the engineers worked and took hostages. The site can be located 500 km from the state capital.
They took five foreigners and four Libyans from the site and kept them as hostages.
After the incidednt a video of four of the hostages wend viral on social media platforms. The video showed four hostages asking governments to help for their release.
The four hostages were identified as a South Korean and Three Filipinos, said they were working on an on-going project for water supply.
President Duterte also looked at sending two firgates or warships to Libya. But he eventually considered his cabinet’s suggestion to initiate a task force first.
Right after the incident was reported to the Philippine Embassy in Libya, the Philippine government promised to help secure the release of the Pinoy hostages.
Meanwhile, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced the release of the hostages recently.
“The Philippines deeply appreciates the efforts of the United Arab Emirates, Libya, South Korea, and other friendly countries that led to the release of the three Filipinos and their Korean colleague.”
The secretary of DFA himself Teodoro Locsin Jr went to meet the three recently-freed Filipino hostages who came with the Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Hjayceelyn Quintana. Last Satuday, they arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) Terminal 2 on board aircraft PR 0659.
In a Twitter post, Teddy Locsin Jr. revealed that there was zero ransom paid to allow the release of the Pinoy Hostages.
This is according to an article from GMA News.
He specifically tweeted:
“No money passed. Not a friggin’ cent. What we had was far better; what we had and have forever were old friends abroad to help. Semper fi.”
That is all there is to it, at least for now. We’ll post updates as soon as we got them.
