Fleeing Moro guerrillas kill 3 civilian hostages

CAMP SIONGCO, Maguindanao — Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels took five civilians hostage, one of them a one-year-old girl, and killed three of them to slow down pursuing government troops in Buldon town yesterday.

The soldiers killed six rebels as they pounded the fleeing guerrillas with 81 mm mortars.

Four of the dead rebels were identified only as Musib, Gandamra, Khalil and Abunawas.

Last Thursday, the guerrillas raided a military outpost near the town of Buldon in Maguindanao but were driven off by soldiers.

Maj. Julieto Ando, spokesman for the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the rebels shot Bosio de la Cruz, 62; Heremias Espaltero, 50; and his daughter Conchita, 36; before fleeing as soldiers arrived at the scene.

The other captives — Felicidad de la Cruz, 58, and one-year-old Erica Espaltero — are now undergoing treatment in a hospital in Cotabato City, he added.

Ando said the retreating rebels seized the five residents and used them as human shields after looting a farming community in Buldon.

Ando said the guerrillas opened fire on houses in Barangay Denganen, prompting armed villagers and civilian volunteers to engage them in a running gunbattle.

While the shootout was going on, Ando said another group of rebels ransacked the surrounding houses and took away farm animals and other valuables.

Sensing that Army reinforcements were closing in, the guerrillas herded the victims to one spot and shot them one after the other, he added.

Ando said the hostilities in Buldon were preceded by an encounter between government troops and MILF rebels along a critical stretch of the Cotabato-General Santos City Highway in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao.

"The rebels nearly succeeded in staging another highway robbery there if not for the vigilance of Muslim villagers who immediately reported their presence in the area to the nearest Army detachment," he said.

Ando said the firefight in Barangay Baka, Datu Odin Sinsuat, erupted when MILF rebels opened fire on soldiers sent to verify the presence of some 200 armed men converging in a barangay traversed by the highway.

The rebels retreated toward the nearby Liguasan Marsh after Air Force helicopters started pounding their positions with rockets, he said.

The MILF rebels also toppled a power transmission tower near the town of Pikit. — With AFP