Suspected Muslim rebels killed a farmworker and abducted two men in a raid on a village in the southern Philippines, officials said Saturday.
About 40 guerrillas raided the farming village on the outskirts of Lamitan City in Basilan province, 900 kilometres south of Manila, on Friday, military report said.
The gunmen killed a farmworker and initially took eight hostages, including six children aged between two and 13, the report added.
But the children "managed to scamper free during sporadic fighting" between the gunmen and responding government troops, according to Basilan Vice Governor Al-Rashid Sakalahul.
"The children were able to return to their home, leaving the gunmen with two hostages," he said.
Sakalahul said government forces were dispatched to hunt down the armed men and rescue the remaining hostages.
He said the gunmen were suspected to be members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest Muslim rebel group fighting for an independent Islamic state in the southern Philippines.
Basilan is also a stronghold of al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf rebels who are holding captive a Sri Lankan peace advocate, six public school teachers and an employee of a lending firm.
A separate group of Abu Sayyaf rebels are holding hostage two European Red Cross workers on the nearby island of Jolo. They freed a third Red Cross worker on April 2, reported dpa.
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