American Man Is Kidnapped and Taken Away on a Boat in the Philippines, Police Say

An American man living in the Philippines was shot and abducted from his home by armed men late on Thursday, according to the local authorities, who said on Friday that they were pursuing the kidnappers.

The man, Elliot Onil Eastman, 26, of Vermont, was abducted from Sibuco, a coastal town on the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines. His kidnapping was reported by his father-in-law, AbdulMali Hamsiran Jala, who told the police that four men who were wearing black pants, shirts and face covers forcibly entered Mr. Eastman’s house in the Zamboanga del Norte Province.

Falsely introducing themselves as police officers, the men attempted to take Mr. Eastman, who managed to resist and run before being shot in the leg with a rifle, the police said. The men put him on a white boat and headed out to sea, according to the police, with the authorities from several Filipino law enforcement agencies launching a “hot pursuit operation” to find the kidnappers.

The identities of the kidnappers were not known, Robert Agda, information chief of the police provincial office, said in a call on Friday.

Mr. Eastman had been living in the Philippines since May, the local authorities said. He first came to the country a year earlier, when he met his wife, Karisha Jala Eastman. They married in July 2023, and Mr. Eastman returned to the United States for work, before traveling back to the Philippines this year.

He shared videos of his life in the Philippines on a YouTube channel that appeared to belong to him. The videos, Mr. Eastman said, speaking of the municipality where he lived, intended to show his “day to day life as the first and only foreigner to have ever lived here in Sibuco for a long period of time.” Along with sharing