Reports are coming in of armed bandits who have abducted 65 students and teachers from a village primary school in Agusan del Sur province on Mindanao island the South of the Philippines.
The Police which describe the gang as a criminal gang have said that 18 of the hostages in which 17 are children have been released.
First reports say that the incident has no signs of being linked to the 57 people who died last month in Mindanao.
Nor are the abductions believed to be linked to a Muslim separatist insurgency elsewhere on Mindanao; those rebels are currently in peace talks with the government.
Army spokesman Maj Michelle Anayron told AFP news agency a “criminal gang” was responsible for the abductions near the town of Prosperidad on Mindanao’s eastern coast.
Agusan del Sur Vice-Governor Santiago Cane told AP news agency 19 bandits fleeing the authorities had seized the residents to use as human shields.
