Tribal gunmen in the southern Philippines warned yesterday they would massacre dozens of hostages if police made a rescue bid, as hundreds of security forces surrounded their mountain lair.
Forty-seven people remained captive in the two-day hostage drama, part of an upsurge of unrest in the Mindanao region, where a political massacre last month triggered martial law in one province.
"I will kill the hostages if police attempt to rescue them," the gunmen's leader, Ondo Perez, told an AFP reporter who accompanied a government negotiator to the remote mountain site.
Mr Perez released 10 of his 57 hostages shortly afterwards, according to the negotiator, Josefina Bajade. Nine of those released were women and the other was a boy, Ms Bajade said. But hopes that the 47 remaining hostages would also be quickly released faded at nightfall, with government officials saying negotiations had been suspended and would resume today.
Seventy-five people were seized on Thursday from a school and neighbouring houses in a small farming village on the outskirts of Prosperidad, the provincial capital. A recent explosion of violence in the southern Philippines comes amid increased political tension, as President Gloria Arroyo, a US ally, is due to step down next year having completed her second term.
Authorities identified the gunmen as members of the Manobo clan, and said they were wanted on charges of murder and other crimes.
Mr Perez, carrying an assault rifle and clad in rubber boots, shorts and a tattered shirt, gave police one week to meet his demands, including lifting arrest warrants issued against his 15-man group. He also demanded that authorities disarm a rival clan engaged in a bitter land feud with the Manobos.
Ms Bajade secured the release of 18 hostages, mainly school children, within eight hours of the kidnapping.
The 47 still in captivity are mainly farmers and other residents of the raided village, plus the school principal, according to local officials. They were held in an abandoned hut in a clearing of a thickly forested mountain about two kilometres from their village.