Militiaman, farmer killed in Maguindanao del Sur attacks

COTABATO CITY— A member of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographical Unit (CAFGU) and a farmer were killed in separate gun attacks in two towns in Maguindanao del Sur on Tuesday, January 28.

Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Wednesday, January 29, that the first fatality in the two incidents was 51-year-old Moro farmer, Nasser Andal Mohamad. 

Mohammad was driving a "kuliglig," an improvised trailer attached to a hand tractor, when he was attacked by gunmen along a farm-to-market road in Barangay Kaya-Kaya in Datu Abdullah Sangki, instantly killing him.

Barangay officials said the attackers quickly fled the scene after the shooting.

The incident was followed by the murder of CAFGU member Esmail Kadin Uyag, 54, in the town proper of Buluan, the capital of Maguindanao del Sur.

The Buluan Municipal Police Station and the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office reported separately to PRO-BAR that Uyag was sitting near a roadside store when gunmen in a white minivan pulled up close to him, shot him, and quickly fled the scene. 

Uyag, a resident of Barangay Tumbao in nearby Mangudadatu town in Maguindanao del Sur, was declared dead on arrival by physicians at the Buluan District Hospital where emergency responders brought him for treatment.

Macapaz said police investigators are trying their best to identify the killers of Mohamad and Uyag with the help of local executives.