2 die as fighting erupts anew in Maguindanao

Skirmishes between Army, BIFF gunmen break out as residents from evacuation camps return home

COTABATO CITY—Two women were killed while another was injured when a bomb landed and exploded in their midst while they were harvesting vegetables in Datu Saudi Ampatuan town, Maguindanao province, on Wednesday, reports from local and military officials said.

Municipal administrator Musib Tan identified the fatalities in the mortar blast as Badia Alon, 40, and Lagabai Mohalidin, 24, both of Barangay Kitango. The injured woman, Noraisa Omar, 34, is recuperating from shrapnel wounds in a local hospital.

Lt. Col. John Paul Baldomar, spokesperson for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the military had investigated the incident, stressing that government forces launch mortar fires with a high degree of precision and accuracy, “not indiscriminately.”

Residents of Kitango, who had just returned home after over a month of staying in evacuation camps, have been confronted by fresh fighting between members of the Islamic State-linked Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) and government soldiers starting Wednesday morning.

At least 540 families were again forced to leave their homes, said Rohanna Salik, a local disaster response officer.

The clashes erupted as BIFF challenged, yet again, the attempt by the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to reestablish a Joint Peace and Security Team (JPST) outpost in the village.

The JPST is composed of police, Army and MILF contingents that will be responsible for maintaining peace and order in former rebel strongholds. It is a transitory community policing setup provided for in the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro signed in 2014.

According to residents, as soon as the contingents began work on the outpost, BIFF started firing into the positions of government forces that later reached residential areas and farms.

Preemptive strikes

Army sources said the JPST outpost would be established in a land adjacent to a property owned by the family of Kagi Karialan, leader of one of three BIFF factions.

Resident Rhidz Khan said the recent turn of events was sad as it came when they were observing the fasting month of Ramadan.

Early on Friday last week, the military launched preemptive artillery strikes against BIFF positions in nearby Shariff Saydona Mustapha town where about 100 gunmen gathered the night before, believed poised for an attack on government targets.

As fighting erupted again, Guiamel Alim of Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society, a network of Moro-led organizations in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), has called for an end to armed hostilities in order for Muslims to have a peaceful and solemn observance of Ramadan.

“Let the civilian population be at their homes without fear and without being displaced,” Alim said. “[M]ore than half of the population of BARMM are poor and many of them have become permanent evacuees since the wars in the past decades. Today, the combined burden of poverty, continuous displacement due to violent conflicts and the adverse impact of COVID-19 make the lives of the population even more miserable than ever.”