2 hurt in 3rd grenade attack in 5 days in Central Mindanao

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Two more villagers were seriously wounded in another grenade attack in Central Mindanao Friday night, the third in a span of five days and brought to 16 the number of people injured in the spate of bombings in the region.

Major Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, identified the latest bombing victims as Kamarudin Ibao and Allan Mama, both of S.K. Pendatun, a secluded town in the second district of Maguindanao.

Ando said the victims were inside a farm house in an interior farming community in S.K. Pendatun when a lone suspect hurled at them a fragmentation grenade through an open window.

"The suspect fled to a nearby marshland according to the initial reports that reached the 6th ID," Ando said.

Preceding the incident was the grenade blast that rocked the town proper of Pikit, North Cotabato Thursday night, causing serious injuries to five bystanders.

The victims, Richard Calua, George Dirilo, Ben Miranda, Hernan Balsado and Eduard Carumba, all residing in Pikit’s town proper, some 70 kilometers north from here, are now undergoing treatment of their shrapnel wounds in different hospitals in Cotabato City.

Ando said the victims were whiling away time in front of a barbecue stand at the town plaza when someone tossed at them a Mark II fragmentation grenade and sped away on board a motorcycle.

Responding policemen and civilian volunteers rushed the wounded bystanders to the Cotabato Regional Medical Center in Cotabato City, where they are now undergoing treatment of their shrapnel wounds.

Nine people were wounded, two of them preschoolers, in a rocket attack two days earlier in Barangay Inog-og in Pikit, not far away from the scene of Thursday’s blast.

Army probers said the victims were inside a house in Barangay Inog-og when they heard something hard land on the roof and explode.

Barangay Inog-og is not far away from Rajah Muda, a former stronghold of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and now a peace zone where different line agencies and non-government organizations are implementing various socio-economic projects involving local MILF farmers.