American YouTuber Elliot Eastman Fatally Shot in Philippines Kidnapping, Police Confirm. Manila, Philippines Police officials in the Philippines said Thursday they were investigating claims that an American kidnap victim died after being shot twice while attempting to thwart the gunmen’s October 17 kidnapping attempt in the southern part of the country.
In the seaside town of Sibuco in the province of Zamboanga del Norte, 26-year-old Elliot Eastman of Vermont was shot twice with an M16 rifle while attempting to fend off his four kidnappers, who pretended to be police officers, according to the police.
Previous police reports said the kidnappers pulled him to a watercraft and drove away.
Although several individuals were apprehended during a major hunt for Eastman and his kidnappers, he has not been located. Last month, a gunfight with police in the south resulted in the deaths of three suspects.
Investigators learned via a cousin of one of the suspects that Eastman died as a result of gunshot wounds to his abdomen and thigh while being hauled away by his kidnappers, according to regional police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Ramoncelio Sawan. According to the relative, the kidnappers chose to dispose of his body in the sea after he passed away.
A crucial suspect in the kidnapping who was just arrested confirmed the information regarding Eastman’s death, and government prosecutors have received his sworn statement, Sawan said. Several suspects have been the subject of criminal allegations of kidnapping, he said.
“We are forced to assume that he has passed away. “Every piece of information we have suggests that,” Sawan stated. He did, however, add that police would continue their investigation because “we’re still leaving a little bit of hope that it may not be the case” in the absence of the victim’s body.
According to Sawan, Philippine police have notified the U.S. Embassy in Manila and Eastman’s Filipino wife of his alleged passing.
Because of privacy concerns, the embassy did not elaborate, but stated that it is aware of the police report and is working with Philippine authorities.
Eastman was abducted after leaving the Philippines and returning to Sibuco to attend his wife’s graduation. According to authorities earlier, the suspects discovered him streaming footage of his life on Facebook and YouTube from Sibuco, a poor, isolated seaside hamlet.
According to them, the suspects seemed to be regular criminals who weren’t affiliated with any Muslim rebel organizations that had previously been implicated in kidnappings for ransom.
The southern Philippines, home to a Muslim minority in the predominantly Roman Catholic country, has long been plagued by security issues.
Despite having abundant resources, the southern region of the Philippines has long been plagued by outlaws, poverty, and insurgencies.
According to Eastman’s YouTube page, he met “the love of my life deep in the mountains” of Zamboanga del Norte when he traveled to the Philippines. He said he would be exploring the area to give his followers a taste of “day to day life as the first and only foreigner” to settle down permanently in the isolated area.
Widespread warfare in the south has significantly decreased since a 2014 peace deal between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the biggest of numerous Muslim separatist organizations. Persistent military campaigns have reduced kidnappings, bombings, and other acts of violence by weakening smaller armed groups like the Abu Sayyaf.
The majority of the Americans and other Western tourists and missionaries who were targeted by the Abu Sayyaf were released after paying ransom. Among those executed were American Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded on the southern island of Basilan, and Martin Burnham, a U.S. missionary who was killed in a rainforest near Sibuco in 2002 while Philippine armed personnel attempted to rescue him and his wife, Gracia Burnham.
