Kidnapped boy flees militants

A KIDNAPPED American boy who escaped from suspected Muslim militants wandered without shoes for two days in a Philippine jungle before villagers found him.

Police Senior Superintendent Edwin de Ocampo said 14-year-old Kevin Lunsmann, of Campbell County, Virginia, told his kidnappers that he would take a bath in a stream, then ran away after five months of captivity on Basilan Island.

The boy, who was barefoot, followed a river and ran away when he saw villagers, who eventually assured him that they were friends.

Mr De Ocampo said the boy was fine except for bruises on his legs and arms. The boy’s Filipino- American mother, Gerfa Yeatts Lunsmann, was freed two months ago.