Golan Heights peacekeeper crisis: Filipinos escape, Fijians taken hostage

40 UN peacekeepers escape their besieged outpost while 44 Fijian troops are taken by al-Qaida affiliate al-Nusra Front

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UN observers watch the Syrian side of Golan Heights, 31 August 2014. Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

Under cover of darkness, 40 Filipino peacekeepers escaped their besieged outpost in the Golan Heights on Sunday after a seven-hour gun battle with Syrian rebels. Al-Qaida-linked insurgents are still holding 44 Fijian troops captive.

The getaway, combined with the departure of another entrapped group of Filipino troops, marked a major step forward in a crisis that erupted on Thursday when Syrian rebels began targeting the peacekeeping forces. The United Nations security Ccouncil has condemned the assaults on the international troops monitoring the Syrian-Israeli frontier, and has demanded the unconditional release of those still in captivity.

The crisis began when Syrian rebels overran the Quneitra crossing located on the de facto border between Syrian- and Israeli-controlled parts of the Golan Heights on Wednesday. A day later, insurgents from the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front seized the Fijian peacekeepers and surrounded their Filipino colleagues, demanding they surrender.

The Filipinos, occupying two UN encampments, refused and fought the rebels on Saturday. The first group of 35 peacekeepers was then successfully escorted out of a UN encampment in Breiqa by Irish and Filipino forces on board armoured vehicles.

The remaining 40 peacekeepers were besieged at the second encampment, called Rwihana, by more than 100 gunmen who rammed the camp's gates with their trucks and fired mortar rounds. The Filipinos returned fire in self-defense, Philippine military officials said.

At one point, Syrian government forces fired artillery rounds from a distance to prevent the Filipino peacekeepers from being overwhelmed, said Colonel Roberto Ancan, a Philippine military official who helped monitor the tense standoff from the Philippine capital, Manila, and mobilise support for the besieged troops.

"Although they were surrounded and outnumbered, they held their ground for seven hours," Philippine military chief General Gregorio Pio Catapang said, adding that there were no Filipino casualties. "We commend our soldiers for exhibiting resolve even while under heavy fire."

As night fell and a ceasefire took hold, the 40 Filipinos fled with their weapons, travelling across the chilly hills for nearly two hours before meeting up with other UN forces, who escorted them to safety early Sunday, Philippine officials said.

"We may call it the greatest escape," Catapang told reporters in Manila.

The Syrian and Israeli governments, along with the US and Qatar, provided support, the Philippine military said without elaborating.

In New York, the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF), whose mission is to monitor a 1974 disengagement in the Golan Heights between Israel and Syria, reported that shortly after midnight local time, during a ceasefire agreed with the armed elements, all 40 Filipino peacekeepers left their position and "arrived in a safe location one hour later."

UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon spoke with the prime minister of Fiji by telephone Sunday, and promised that the United Nations was "doing its utmost to obtain the unconditional and immediate release" of the Fijian peacekeepers, Ban's office said.

The Fiji Times Online reported that Fiji's military commander expressed concern that the exact locations of the Fijian peacekeepers remain unconfirmed.

Military commander brigadier general Mosese Tikoitoga also told reporters in the South Pacific island nation on Sunday that contacts on the ground in the Golan Heights have assured the military of the captured soldiers' well-being, the report said.

He said a UN negotiation team and Fijians in Syria were working toward the peacekeepers' release.

The Nusra Front, meanwhile, confirmed that it had seized the Fijians. In a statement posted online, the group published a photo showing what it said were the captured Fijians in their military uniforms along with 45 identification cards. The group said the men "are in a safe place and in good health, and everything they need in terms of food and medicine is given to them."

It was unclear why the number of detained peacekeepers differed from the 44 figure provided by the UN.

The statement mentioned no demands or conditions for the peacekeepers' release.