Relief aid for villagers displaced by Dawlah attacks pouring in

KIDAPAWAN CITY, Philippines — Relief support for 1,298 Moro families displaced by last week’s deadly forays by the outlawed Dawlah Islamiya in two towns in Maguindanao del Sur are pouring in and local officials are expecting more soon.

Mayor Salik Mamasabulod of Pagalungan town in Maguindanao del Sur told reporters on Saturday that among those that had provided the internally displaced people, or IDPs, from barangays in their municipality affected by the hostilities is the office of Kadil Sinolinding Jr., a member of the 80-seat Bangsamoro parliament.

“We are thankful to those who had provided these IDPs with relief support, one of them is Bangsamoro Parliament Member Sinolinding. Me and my constituent-leaders are optimistic more would be coming in next week,” Mamasabulod, chairperson of the Pagalungan Municipal Peace and Order Council, said.

The office of Sinolinding facilitated the delivery of a truckload of rice, in 25-kilo packings, to Pagalungan on Saturday, according to Mamasabulod.

Villages in Pagalungan and in Montawal, Maguindanao del Sur that are close to the Liguasan Delta were scenes of deadly gunfights last week between Dawlah Islamiya terrorists and pursuing members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front that has a peace agreement with the government binding both sides to maintain law and order in isolated areas in southern provinces.

Nine terrorists were killed in the clashes that also left eight MILF members dead. The series of gunfights in Barangay Dalgan in Pagalungan forced villagers to relocate to safe areas, many of them now in makeshift shelters close to the town center.

“Our municipal peace and order council shall embark on measures, along with the police and the military, that can prevent the return of those terrorists into barangays in Pagalungan,” Mamasabulod said.

The Army’s 602nd Infantry Brigade first pounded with 155 Howitzer cannons the lairs of the Dawlah Islamiya in strategic areas in the Liguasan Delta, near Pagalungan and Montawal and in Pikit town in Cotabato, two days before the deadly clashes in Barangay Dalgan between terrorists and MILF members.

An evacuee, the 48-year-old farmer Akmad Latip, told reporters on Saturday that they decided to abandon their homes after retreating Dawlah Islamiya members vented their ire on innocent Dalgan residents, killing a brother of a barangay official in Dalgan and his two-year-old son and three other hapless villagers.

“They are dangerous and so ruthless. We are praying that they would not come back and sow havoc again in our barangays," a 36-year-old mother, Anisa Makas, whose three children and husband, Kader, are now in a makeshift evacuation site in Barangay Tungol in Montawal, said in Filipino.