Local armed police arrive at the Singamata Hotel in Sabah, east Malaysia, where a female Chinese tourist was kidnapped on April 2, 2014.Photo: West China City Daily

 
 
China urged Malaysia on Thursday to spare no efforts in rescuing a Chinese tourist abducted from a dive resort in Sabah by a group of gunmen on Wednesday night.

Two women, 29-year-old Shanghai resident Gao Huayun, and a 40-year-old Filipino receptionist Marcy Dayawan, were kidnapped by six gunmen at 10:30 pm, at Singamata Reef Resort, near the town of Semporna in Malaysia's eastern state of Sabah. The hotel is comprised of a row of bungalows built on stilts in the sea.

According to pictures uploaded on social media, guests could be seen cowering behind upturned tables as the gunmen stormed through the resort. Other pictures show armed police and the military, who arrived quickly, scouring the hotel for the gunmen, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. The remaining guests and staff were gathered in a main hall for safety.

Sabah police chief Hamza Taib said Thursday that the armed men are believed to come from the neighboring Philippines, reported local paper New Straits Times.

A popular tourist area famed for scuba diving, eastern Sabah has been plagued by kidnaps for ransom from Muslim insurgents from the southern Philippines. Abu Sayyaf has been implicated in a number of other seaborne kidnappings, and is the main suspect in this incident, according to a Philippine intelligence official, SCMP reported. The area is only a short boat ride from the Philippines.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said Thursday that China urged local police to rescue the Chinese victim, and to take measures to protect other Chinese tourists.

In a press conference in Sabah state capital Kota Kinabalu, Hamza said that police believe that this was a kidnapping case, but added that no demands for ransom have been received.

Gao's traveling companion, a Chinese woman surnamed Su, told Shanghai-based Oriental Television Thursday that Gao was kidnapped from their room while Su was in the bath.

According to a reporter from Chengdu-based West China City Daily at the scene, there were roughly 60 Chinese tourists at the resort, and some heard gunshots and cries for help. The two victims were forced into a waiting boat which left quickly. The raid reportedly only lasted around a minute.

Liu Dongyuan, deputy consul at the Chinese consulate in Kuching in neighboring Sarawak, told the Global Times that the majority of the Chinese tourists who had been guests at the hotel had left and security had been tightened up.

The consulate issued an alert to Chinese tourists traveling in Sabah to enhance their awareness of personal security Thursday.

The incident came after tensions between China and Malaysia were stirred up over Malaysia's handling of the search for Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370, which went missing last month with 239 people aboard, 154 of whom were Chinese.

The kidnap could be a deliberate act to sour Sino-Malaysian ties, local newspaper The Star quoted Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak as saying on Thursday.

"This must be avoided. There may be those who are attempting to drive a wedge between us and China. They may be trying to take advantage of the situation," the prime minister was quoted as saying, noting that the priority now is to obtain the release of the victims.

The Philippine Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said in a statement that "the embassy's police attaché immediately alerted Philippine police authorities in nearby areas for possible interdiction, in the event the perpetrators and their victims were headed their way," reported the Xinhua News Agency.

In November, suspected Abu Sayyaf militants killed a tourist from Taiwan and kidnapped his wife. She was released one month later. Authorities did not say whether a ransom was paid. Such deals are normally not immediately disclosed to the media, if at all, reported the Associated Press.

"Abu Sayyaf, now with roughly 400 members, is a terrorist group that has links with Al Qaeda. They kidnap people to obtain ransom, normally up to millions of dollars," Xu Liping, an associate research fellow with the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times.

China is the largest country of origin for tourists in Sabah, according to local government figures. More than 360,000 Chinese citizens visited the Malaysian state in 2013, up 86.7 per cent from the previous year.