Philippine Interior Minister Ronaldo Puno said Wednesday he believed three hostages, including an Italian doctor, being held by Islamic separatists are still alive 24 hours after a deadline passed.
The Abu Sayyaf group, which took the three International Red Cross staffers hostage in January, had threatened to behead one of them by 2 PM local time (6 AM GMT, 8 AM Italian time) Tuesday if the Philippine army did not withdraw from 14 villages in the southern province of Sulu.
Puno admitted he had no proof that Italian Eugenio Vagni, Nicolas Notter of Switzerland and Filipino Mary Jean Lacaba were still alive but said ''all signs'' pointed to this.
''If one of them had been killed the situation would already be different,'' he said. The head of the Philippine Red Cross, Richard Gordon, on Wednesday asked for proof that the three were alive and well.
''I want to speak to them,'' he said, adding that in the past few hours he had received two text messages purporting to be from the hostages asking why the army had not withdrawn.
Vagni, 62, is a native of Montevarchi, near the Tuscan city of Arezzo, and has been living in Asia for several years.
Abu Sayyaf, which means Swords of God, is a guerrilla group that is seeking to create an Islamic state in the Philippines and has carried out numerous acts of violence in the southern Philippines.
