An American YouTuber said he moved to the most dangerous area of the Philippines just a week before he was kidnapped.
According to local authorities, 26-year-old Elliot Eastman was shot in the leg and kidnapped by armed men who posed as police officers and took him away on a speedboat.
The Vermont native had shared his life online after moving to the southern Philippines, where he married a local Muslim woman in Sibuco.
Just weeks before he was kidnapped, Eastman posted on a Facebook livestream that he was afraid of living in the area, where police say he had been for five months.
“As long as I’m here, my life is still in danger, you know,” Eastman said on September 22.
‘That’s the reality. especially the area I’m in. It’s not even just the Philippines.
According to local authorities, 26-year-old Elliot Eastman was shot in the leg and kidnapped by armed men who posed as police officers and chased him away on a speedboat.
“I came to the Philippines about a year and a half ago, where I met the love of my life, deep in the mountains of the red zone of the Philippines,” the YouTuber wrote in his bio.
“This area I’m in looks like the most dangerous area in the country, so it literally looks like the red zone.”
Eastman added that “of course he was scared,” but not as much as at the beginning of his stay in the Asian country.
“There are nights when I’m scared, there are times when I’m scared…but it’s gotten better. In the past I had difficulty sleeping at night.’
When one of the viewers of the livestream asked him when he would return to the US, Elliot said he wasn’t sure.
If it is confirmed to be a kidnapping for ransom, it would be the latest reminder of the long-running security problems plaguing the southern Philippines, home to a Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic country.
In a biography under his YouTube channel, Eastman wrote: ‘Hello everyone, I’m Elliot Eastman, I’m 26 years old and I came to the Philippines about a year and a half ago where I met the love of my life deep in the mountains of the red zone of the Philippines.
Eastman will appear in one of his YouTube livestreams on October 16
Police in the town of Sibuco in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte attempted to pursue the suspected kidnappers and their victim, following the reported kidnapping on Thursday evening
‘Zamboanga del Norte is a recently developed area in the Philippines that was once only accessible by boat.
‘I will show you my daily life as the first and only foreigner who ever lived here in Sibuco for a long time. I’m from the US!’
Police in the city of Sibuco in the southern province of Zamboanga del Norte attempted to pursue the suspected kidnappers and their victim after the reported kidnapping on Thursday evening.
“We confirm that there has been a report of the alleged kidnapping of a US citizen,” regional police said in a statement.
American YouTuber Elliot Eastman (right) is suspected of being kidnapped from a remote Philippine village on Thursday, just months after he married a local woman (left)
Eastman wrote: “I am 26 years old and came to the Philippines about a year and a half ago, where I met the love of my life deep in the mountains of the Philippines’ red zone.
“We would like to assure the public, and especially the community of Sibuco, that we are doing everything in our power to ensure the safe recovery of the victim.”
Police asked the public to immediately provide any information that could assist an ongoing investigation into the reported kidnapping.
Police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Helen Galvez told AFP that “so far no one is asking for ransom.”
Two police reports stated that a resident of Sibuco, Abdulmali Hamsiran Jala, reported to police that four men wearing black clothes, armed with M16 rifles and introducing themselves as police officers, forcibly took Eastman, who tried to escape.
One of the gunmen shot Eastman in the leg before dragging him into a speedboat and then fled by sea further south to Basilan or Sulu provinces, police reports said.
Police officers gave chase but were unable to find the gunmen and Eastman and alerted other police and Philippine Navy units in the region, the reports said.
The southern Philippines has abundant resources but has long been crippled by abject poverty and a slew of insurgents and bandits.