MANILA, Philippines — Philippine police said Wednesday they arrested three suspects in the kidnapping of an American in the south of the country and I believe the victim, who was shot in the leg during the kidnapping, is still alive.

Two of the suspects in the Oct. 17 kidnapping of Elliot Onil Eastman, 26, in Sibuco City, Zamboanga del Norte Province have surrendered separately and pointed to a third suspect who was arrested in Sibuco. said police officials.

Three other suspects, who may be holding Eastman, have been identified, police said, adding that more people may be involved. Criminal kidnapping charges were filed Tuesday against the six suspects.

“We believe he is alive, so our operations are ongoing,” regional police spokeswoman Lt. Col. Helen Galvez told The Associated Press by phone. “Our search will not stop until we find him.”

A house-to-house search was underway in an unspecified area, Galvez said without elaborating. She added that the suspects belong to a criminal group and not to any of the armed Muslim rebel groups that have been accused of a series of kidnappings for ransom in the southern Philippines over the decades.

The kidnappers were armed with M16 rifles and disguised themselves as police officers. One of them shot Eastman in the leg when he tried to escape, then dragged him into a speedboat and fled, according to the first police reports of the kidnapping seen by the AP, citing a witness.

Two empty M16 ammunition casings and bloodstains were seen by investigators in Sibuco, where Eastman had been living for about five months before he was abducted, Galvez said.

Eastman, from Vermont, traveled outside the Philippines and recently returned to attend his Filipina wife’s graduation. He posted videos on Facebook of his life in Sibuco, a remote and impoverished coastal town where the suspects spotted him, Galvez said.

“He was confident. He was the only foreigner there,” according to Galvez.

Although authorities said the kidnapping for ransom was isolated in the relatively peaceful region, it was a reminder of the security problems that have long dogged the southern Philippines, home to a Muslim minority in the largely Roman Catholic nation.

The southern third of the Philippines has rich resources but has long been plagued by severe poverty and a number of insurrectionist and outlaws.

A 2014 peace agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the largest of several Muslim separatist groups, has greatly eased large-scale fighting in the south. Relentless military offensives have weakened smaller armed groups such as violent ones Abu Sayyaf group over the years, greatly reducing kidnappings, bombings and other attacks.

The Abu Sayyaf group has targeted American and other Western tourists and religious missionaries, most of whom were released after ransoms were paid. Several were killed, including an American, Guillermo Sobero, who was beheaded in the island province of Basilan, and an American missionary, Martin Burnham, who was killed as Philippine military forces tried to rescue him and his wife, Gracia Burnham, in 2002. in a rainforest in the town of Sirawai near Sibuco.