MANILA - President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday said he is considering sending a ship to Libya after a group kidnapped three Filipinos in the North African country.
Duterte said he also wants to show force after South Korea deployed a warship to Libya to secure the release of its national kidnapped along with the three Filipinos.
“If they begin to hurt ‘yung tatlo, magpadala ako ng frigate (If they begin to hurt the three, I will send a frigate),” Duterte said in a speech in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.
“Kapag nakita niyo pasabugin niyo yung p****g i*a (When [the ship] finds [the kidnappers], bomb the s*** of b*****s).”
Three Filipino engineers and a South Korean were abducted in an attack on a water project site in western Libya on July 6.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said efforts were being carried out to secure the release of the three Filipinos.
Seoul and Manila have confirmed the kidnap victims were featured in a video shared on social media this week. 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.
“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,” Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Elmer Cato told Agence France-Presse.
Since former Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi was ousted from power and killed in 2011, foreign workers and diplomatic missions have frequently been targeted by militias or jihadists such as the Islamic State group. - with a report from AFP