10 hurt in Sultan Kudarat grenade attack

SULTAN KUDARAT, Philippines - Ten people, three of them school children, were hurt late Saturday in a grenade explosion in Sultan Kudarat’s capital town Isulan, the fifth bombing incident in Central Mindanao in just two weeks.

The Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp. nased in Cotabato City reported that 15 people were hurt in the blast, citing reports gathered from local authorities.

Only 10 have so far been identified as of press time Sunday.

Senior Superintendent Danny Reyes, Sultan Kudarat provincial police director, said investigators are still trying to establish the identities of the culprits and their motive for the attack.

The victims were milling together near a petroleum retail station in Barangay Kenram northwest of Isulan when someone hurled a grenade toward the establishment from a distance and hurriedly left.

The victims were identified as Abix Sandigan, 33, Almashir Ibrahim, 22, Sahid Salendab, 27, Marissa Villanueva, 30, Anne Janet Latip, 21, Lily Beth Ferolino, 45, Linda Baltazar, 49, Regina Dela Rosa, 14, and her six-year-old sibling, Darius, Darius Dela Rosa, and another 11-year-old child named Jasper Lindah.

The victims, who sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies, were rushed to different hospitals for medication.

Col. Mel Feliciano, commanding officer of the Army’s 601st Brigade, said their intelligence operatives are now helping the police investigate the incident.

Saturday night’s bombing in Isulan was preceded by four immediate grenade attacks in Central Mindanao, thrice in Kabacan, North Cotabato, and another in Cotabato City, wounding eight people all, two of them members of the Army’s 5th Special Forces Battalion.