Clashes displace Butuan City folk

BUTUAN CITY, Philippines – Hostilities between government troopers and New People’s Army (NPA) rebels have forced some 180 families in two upland communities in Barangay Anticala here to flee their homes for fear of being caught in the crossfire.

City Councilor Ryan Anthony Culima, who chairs the committee of peace and order and police matters, said the city government has provided food rations to the evacuees temporarily sheltered at the Tagkiling Elementary School.

The military denied a report from the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council that 10 Special Forces men went missing in the clashes.

“All of our soldiers are accounted for. No one was hit during the encounter and there were no casualties. No one was (snatched),” said Lt. Col. Eugenio Osias IV, spokesman of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division.

Osias said their troops even seized ammunition and the backpacks of the insurgents.