7 missing as pirates take over boat carrying smuggled cigarettes

COTABATO CITY — Seven of 11 seafarers who were supposed to deliver smuggled cigarettes are missing since Monday after pirates divested them of their merchandise and forced them to jump out of their watercraft in an attack in the western seas of Maguindanao del Norte province.

Four companions of the seven missing men, Rasiden Asdali, Tawasil Jumadil, Yahya Hadjulani and Gadjer Sampang, were rescued by fishermen while swimming toward a barangay in the seaside Datu Blah Sinsuat town in Maguindanao del Norte. They are now under the custody of the local police.

The four Tausug boatmen had readily confessed to investigators in the Datu Blah Sinsuat Municipal Police Station that they were supposed to deliver of 100 large boxes of cigarettes with Indonesian brands from Zamboanga Sibugay province when men on smaller motorized boats came close, ordered them to jump overboard and towed their boat towards the nearby Bongo Island in the territory of Parang town in Maguindanao del Norte.

They confirmed to police investigators that seven of their companions who jumped ahead of them into the sea are missing.

“We have reported to the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and to the Maritime police unit in Cotabato City that seven companions of these four men now in our custody are missing,” Capt. Captain Abdulbasit Kulod, chief of the Datu Blah Sinsuat MPS, told reporters on Tuesday morning.

Kulod said local officials in Datu Blah Sinsuat have assured to help facilitate the return of Asdali, Jumadil, Hadjulani and Sampang to their families in Zamboanga City.