MILF militants take Midsayap folk hostage

DAVAO CITY – Suspected Moro Islamic Liberation Front rebels reportedly took hostage over the weekend at least 25 residents of Barangay Rangaban in Midsayap, North Cotabato.

According to Army Maj. Armando Rico, spokesman of the Armed Forces Eastern Mindanao Command based here in Davao City, the rebels first harassed the few government troops assigned in the vicinity of the said barangay and then proceeded to destroy the houses of the civilian populace.

Rico said the rebels also looted the properties of the villagers who were all kept hostage.

The Eastmincom spokesman said the militants also molested a number of the women residents by touching their private body parts.

The rebels were reportedly forced to release the hostages upon the arrival of the responding troops from the Army’s 40th Infantry Battalion.

The MILF rebels lately launched a spate of attacks on certain villages in Southern and Central Mindanao in what is reportedly their impatience over the long-stalled peace negotiations with government.

The rebels also raided last week the town of Maitum in Sarangani Province that caused the evacuation of hundreds of its residents to safer grounds as firefight ensued when government troops flushed them out of the area.

In related developments, the marauding MILF guerrillas also raided a village in Matalam, North Cotabato yesterday, wounding a farmer and forcing dozens of families to evacuate to safer grounds.

PO3 Danny Tobias, chief investigator of the Matalam municipal police, said the MILF militants first surrounded a farming village in Barangay Malamote and opened fire at houses and people working on their rice farms.

“The shooting frenzy triggered panic among residents there, forcing them to abandon their homes,” Tobias said.

Matalam’s peace and order council said the rebels took with them the farm animals of the fleeing farmers left as they evacuated in haste.

Tobias said they are convinced the gunmen that raided Barangay Malamote were MILF rebels.

“We have received reports from Muslim leaders in Matalam that these rebels were first sighted marching toward Barangay Malamote from the Liguasan Marsh, a known lair of the MILF,” Tobias said.

Preceding the attack at Barangay Malamote were the spate of harassments by MILF guerrillas of military detachments in North Cotabato’s Aleosan and Midsayap towns, causing the displacement of more than 200 families, mostly marginalized Muslim villagers.