ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – A kidnapped American teenage boy escaped from suspected al-Qaeda-linked militants and wandered without shoes for two days in the jungle of Basilan before villagers found him, ending his five-month captivity, officials said yesterday.
Col. Ricardo Visaya, commander of the Army’s 104th Infantry Brigade and Joint Task Force Basilan, said no ransom was paid for the freedom of 14-year-old Kevin Lunsmann, saying he escaped “due to the confusion brought about by the presence of soldiers.”
Lunsmann told his four armed captors that he would take a bath in a stream and then made a dash for freedom Friday in Lamitan City, Basilan, said Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo, Zamboanga City police chief.
He followed a river down a mountain until folk in the remote village of Bulingan found him late the next day, De Ocampo said.
Exhausted, hungry and still stunned, the boy initially fled from the villagers, De Ocampo said.
“He was in fear so there was a bit of a chase before the villagers convinced him that they were friends,” he said, adding that the teenager was fine, but was exhausted and had bruises on his arms and feet.
Lamitan City Mayor Roderick Furigay said the teener survived on candies he had kept in his pockets as he wandered in the jungle.
Zamboanga City Mayor Celso Lobregat said he has been flown to Manila and turned over to US officials there.
US Ambassador Harry Thomas said the boy would be reunited with his family soon.
“In this holiday season nothing makes me happier than knowing that an innocent victim is returned to his family in time for holiday celebrations,” Thomas said in a statement.
“I also want to acknowledge the courage of Kevin himself, and his family, throughout this long ordeal,” he said.
Thomas said there would be a “speedy investigation and prosecution of all those involved in the kidnapping of American citizens.”
Lobregat said the boy has talked by phone with his Filipino-American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, 42, who was in the US. He, his mother and a Filipino cousin, Romnick Jakaria, 19, were vacationing with relatives on an island near this city when they were snatched last July 12 and taken by boat to nearby Basilan.
The captors then called the family in Campbell County, Virginia, to demand ransom, officials said.
The mother was freed two months ago after she was dropped off by boat at a wharf in Basilan. The boy’s cousin escaped from their captors last month when Army forces managed to get near an Abu Sayyaf camp in the mountains of Basilan.
Lobregat revealed that the Lunsmann family shelled out $15,000 during the early stage of the kidnapping, and the captors withdrew it through ATM (automated teller machine).
Visaya said the kidnappers were believed led by Abu Sayyaf militant Puruji Indama, who is notorious for ransom kidnappings and beheadings.
Troops were hunting down the militants and clashed with one group in Akbar town, near Lamitan, which may have distracted the kidnappers and gave Lunsmann a chance to flee, Visaya said.
When Visaya asked the boy if he was freed, which would indicate that ransom was paid, or escaped, Lunsmann replied that he fled from his captors. “No, I really did it myself,” he quoted the boy as telling him.
Visaya said he later handed the boy to American troops based in Basilan.
Lobregat said the Police Anti-Crime and Emergency Response will file charges against the kidnappers most likely in Manila in the next few days.
Last Dec. 5, suspected militants seized Australian Warren Richard Rodwell, 53, from his seaside house in Zamboanga Sibugay. – AP, Roel Pareño, John Unson, Alexis Romero
