COTABATO CITY — A young female lawyer was killed, and her lawyer boyfriend was seriously wounded in an ambush in Barangay Awang, Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte, on the afternoon of Monday, March 17.
Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Tuesday, March 18, that Junisa Kimamaw, a practicing lawyer, died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the ambush.
The attack also left her lawyer boyfriend, Ibrahim Pindatu, severely wounded. They were set to marry according to Islamic rites in early April, after the Islamic Ramadan fasting season.
In a report to Macapaz, Lt. Col. Jackson Lopez, chief of the Datu Odin Sinsuat municipal police, said Kimamaw, a certified public accountant, and Pindatu, a former school teacher turned lawyer, were in a sports utility vehicle when gunmen attacked them along a highway in Barangay Awang, about eight kilometers south of Cotabato City, the capital of the Bangsamoro region.
Barangay officials told reporters that the attackers managed to escape before a responding police team and volunteer community watchmen arrived at the scene.
Macapaz said local officials are helping police investigators put a closure to the incident.