by Santosh Digal

Crisis Management Committee says it lost contact with kidnappers. Muslim religious leaders call for the release of the International Red Cross worker. Filipino government says Italian man is in a hut in Indanan forest.

Manila (AsiaNews) – Negotiations for the release of Eugenio Vagni have reportedly come to a halt. Army units are hunting small Abu Sayyaf groups to prevent them from regrouping. The Sulu Crisis Management Committee has reportedly lost contact with the kidnappers holding the Italian Red Cross worker but still believes that he is in the same area where his colleague, Swiss Andreas Notter, was found

Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno meanwhile said they will continue to coordinate with Muslim religious leaders in an effort to negotiate for Vagni's freedom.

The 62-year-old man is the last of three International Red Cross abducted on 15 January still held by an extremist group.

Puno said that authorities will keep putting “pressure on the bandits” as the military continues tracking them.

On 18 April, when Mr Notter was released, the Filipino government had said that a solution to Mr Vagni’s fate would be quickly found. The third humanitarian worker, Ms Mary Jean Lacaba who is Filipino, was on 2 April.

Now the government is being more cautious but not less optimistic.

Secretary Puno said that the abductors of the Italian Red Cross worker, who is reportedly unable to walk, could be holed up with their prisoner in a hut in the middle of Indanan’s jungle, Sulu province.

• philippines
• eugenio
• vagni
• sulu
• andreas
• notter
• mary
• jean
• lacaba
• ronaldo
• puno
• hostages
• international
• red
• cross
• indanan
• jungle