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Joint effort frees kidnapped girl

Army and MILF combine forces to help win release
Joint effort frees kidnapped girl
A government soldier mans a checkpoint in Pikit, Cotabato
Published: September 20, 2011 10:59 AM GMT
Updated: September 20, 2011 10:59 AM GMT

Kidnappers in Mindanao released a seven-year-old girl yesterday nine hours after she was abducted following negotiations with government officials and Moro Islamic Liberation Front  rebels. Keisha Jel Navarro, a second-grader at the Pikit Central Pilot Elementary School, was reunited with her family yesterday evening after she was found nearby in Balong village in Cotabato town. Two suspects on a motorcycle snatched the girl around 12:30 p.m. from her mother, teacher Elsie Navarro, while they were on their way to an afternoon class. An army statement said the kidnappers had left a note, telling Keisha’s relatives not to tell the military or the police or she would be killed. However army personnel and MILF rebels set about trying to track the kidnappers down. At around 8 pm, the kidnappers called Dulia Sultan, a negotiator tasked with securing the freedom of the girl, directing her to Sitio Gawang in Balong village, where she later found Keisha. “The immediate release of the girl was a result of coordinated efforts by all agencies. We heard the MILF also helped. Everybody helped. That's why the girl was abandoned. The kidnappers were pressured [into releasing her],” said military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin L Hao. He said the area where Keisha was taken was an area held by the MILF. “I heard [the MILF] were called by the local crisis committee. She was being held in their area so they had a responsibility to help,” the spokesman said. Kidnapping was once a "cottage industry" in North Cotabato in the early 1990s.

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