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ZAMBOANGA CITY: Police mounted a search Friday for a
British national who was reported missing while visiting the
southern port city of Zamboanga, reports said.
Local radio reports said James
David Rowe has been missing since Thursday after he failed to return
to his hotel in downtown Zamboanga. Rowe checked in at the Amil
Hotel and left with a Filipino man, the Radio Agong reported.
“The foreigner left with a
Filipino man and never returned. We reported the matter to the
police. We don’t know what happened to him. His things are all
inside the room,” said a woman at the hotel’s front desk.
She said Rowe was alone when he
checked in at the hotel, but refused to elaborate further, saying
she is not authorized to talk about it.
Mayor Celso Lobregat has ordered
the police to search for the missing foreigner, his spokesperson,
Sheila Covarrubias, said. “Police is doing all it can to locate
the foreigner,” she told The Manila Times.
Initial police reports, she said,
showed that Rowe is engaged in the buying and selling of automotive
spare parts and authorities are investigating whether his business
has anything to do with his disappearance.
“At this time, we still do not
know what really happened. We can only speculate,” Covarrubias
said.
The United States Embassy last
month said it received information that extremists may be planning
to kidnap Americans or other foreigners in hotels or other public
places in Zamboanga City.
It warned Americans not to travel
to Zamboanga, which had been targeted in the past by Abu Sayyaf
militants whose group is tied to the al-Qaeda terror network.
Australia also issued a similar
warning last month and told its citizens not to travel to Zamboanga
and other areas in the southern region. Two homemade bombs exploded
in Zamboanga City a week after the US and Australian warnings.
--Al Jacinto
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