By Francis Wakefield
The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) is ready to deploy a special Philippine Navy (PN) force to Libya to rescue three Filipinos and a South Korean who were kidnapped at a water project site in western Libya last month.
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Commander Jonathan V. Zata, director of the Naval Public Affairs Office, said Libyan authorities have been exerting all efforts for the past month to ascertain the identity of the perpetrators and for the recovery of the kidnapped nationals.
The Philippine Navy, through its Liaison Officer, Navy Captain Donn Miraflor, who is attached to the Combined Maritime Forces based in Bahrain has been coordinating with Philippine Charge d’Affaires Boy Melicor in Tripoli, Libya.
"As your Philippine Navy completes the facts on the ground, it is also preparing for the deployment of a Naval Task Group to assist the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) in the situation in Libya," Zata said.
The three Filipino engineers and a South Korean were abducted during an attack on a water project site in western Libya on July 6.
Both Philippine and Korean governments confirmed they were featured in a video shared on social media. The video, also posted by the SITE Intelligence group, shows the four men addressing the camera in English.
An armed guard is pictured squatting behind them in the sand, but their captors are not identified and the attack has not been claimed by any group. It was not clear when the video was shot.
DFA Spokesman Elmer Cato said the Philippine embassy in Tripoli has confirmed that the three men in the video are the three Filipino technicians who were taken by armed men in Libya last month