ZAMBOANGA CITY: Kidnappers have seized a member of a prominent family on a coastal village in Zamboanga, police said.

Gunmen took the victim, Edgar Fabella, 42, to a waiting motorized boat in the village called Maasin at about 8 p.m. and sped off under cover of darkness on Friday.

No other details about the abduction were made available by the authorities and no individual or group claimed responsibility for the latest kidnapping.

Just last month, suspected Abu Sayyaf kidnappers released on ransom a school principal, Flordeliza Ongchua, 49, after over two months in captivity in Jolo town.

Ongchua was kidnapped on November 13 in her house in Zamboanga’s Labuan village, several miles from where Fabella was seized. At least a dozen gunmen barged in Ongchua’s house after failing to find their target, the village chieftain, Ronald Maravilla, who is a relative of the victim.

“Another kidnapping incident has happened just this evening with a member of the Fabella family taken, very Tragic indeed. My prayers and solidarity [go] to the family in their present moments of anxiety and pain,” Crisanto dela Cruz, a former Catholic priest, wrote in his Facebook page.

“What is happening to our dear Zamboanga City? The intelligence funds and billions of government funds deposited in banks is a great shame if our people are not safe, being victims of kidnappings, killings and other unsolved crimes. What a shame, God bless and protect us all from harm,” he added.