PETALING JAYA, April 3 – Several armed gunmen abducted a Chinese tourist and a female employee from a hotel resort in Sabah yesterday night.
Hong Kong-based daily South China Morning Post today reported that the incident took place at 10.30pm last night, at the Singamata Reef Resort, located at the eastern side of Sabah.
The hotel manager, who only wished to be known as Vicky, said about six men raided the hotel and left by a boat within minutes after kidnapping the duo.
The Chinese tourist is known as Gao Huayun, a tourist from Shanghai in her twenties. The name of the female hotel employee was not revealed but is said to be from the Philippines.
Some 50 police and military personnel arrived at the area later and had gathered remaining guests and staff in the resort’s main hall.
By today morning, it was said that all 61 guests – 59 of them being Chinese nationals – had decided to leave the resort.
The recent incident may further erode ties between China and Malaysia, already strained due to the missing flight MH370, which carried 152 Chinese passengers.
In February last year, about 200 Sulu gunmen from southern Philippines arrived at Lahad Datu, Sabah and killed several policemen, in a bid to ‘reclaim’ the Borneo state for the Sulu Sultanate.
The Malaysian security forces crushed the intruders later but many had criticised the government for waiting too long before taking action against the gunmen.
The Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein even urged the public not to worry, adding that the Sulu intruders were merely ‘malnourished old men.’
In November, a Taiwanese tourist was shot dead after being kidnapped in Semporna, the district where yesterday’s abduction occurred.
His wife was later rescued by Philippines security forces in the southern Philippine island province of Sulu.
– FREE MALAYSIA TODAY
