39 Marawi evacuees die of illnesses

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines — Health officials on Friday said 39 evacuees from Marawi City died from different illnesses while living in evacuation centers in the past three weeks.

Three of the fatalities are children who died of dehydration caused by diarrhea.

Physician Kadil Sinolinding, Jr., regional health secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said on Friday that the deaths of 19 of the 39 people who succumbed to various diseases had been properly documented.

The rest were immediately buried by relatives in keeping with an Islamic tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours from the time of death.

Two evacuees died from lingering cardiovascular ailments.

Sinolinding said ARMM health workers were now helping maintain cleanliness in evacuation sites.

“Unsanitary disposal of human wastes is one of the health hazards in evacuation sites,” Sinolindig said.

Parents of sick children have complained of difficulty in bringing their children to health centers and private clinics due to the extremely rigid screening of motorists and passengers of public transportation by soldiers and policemen guarding checkpoints along the Marawi-Iligan Highway and the Secretary Narciso Ramos road that links Marawi City to towns in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

“Among the interventions being initiated is feeding of evacuees, particularly children, with high-energy foods,” Sinolinding said.

He said the ARMM government was thankful to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children’s Fund for helping attend to the needs of children in more than 20 evacuation sites.

Statistics from the crisis management committee of the provincial government of Lanao del Sur and ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team indicated that there are now 200,234 internally-displaced people (IDP) from Marawi City.

More than 40,000 IDPs are “house-based,” or those in houses of relatives outside of Marawi City.