COTABATO CITY — Over a thousand Teduray natives trapped in ongoing clashes between state forces and the IS-inspired Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in the border of three towns in Maguindanao are now safe and have been extended with food aid.
Fatima Kanakan, executive director of Office of Southern Cultural Communities in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (OSCC-ARMM), said the surroundings of three neighboring sub-villages in the boundaries of Datu Hofer, Datu Unsay and Datu Saudi towns in Maguindanao had been quiet the past two days.
“They (natives) moved out already, they are now being served by government relief agencies,” Kanakan told PNA in an interview.
She said the trapped villagers, numbering some 1,200 individuals, were scared to go out of their houses when intermittent fighting erupted anew the past three days between government forces and BIFF militants in Mt. Firis, an ancestral domain of the Tedurays in Maguindanao.
“They (natives) could not move out to other communities for fear they might step on landmines planted by lawless elements,” Kanakan explained as to how the ‘lumads” were trapped.
“Relief workers could not reach them for food and water because the military refused to give clearance due to possible landmines along the route,” she added.
Since Friday, relief workers from the ARMM Humanitarian Emergency Action Response Team (HEART) and the Maguindanao Peoples Medical Team, have distributed food and non-food items to affected families.
The military remained on alert as the outlawed BIFF would harass military detachments every now and then, according to Capt. John Arvin Encinas, Army’s 6th Infantry Division spokesman.
“There were sightings of BIFF fighters under Commander Bungos trying to get closer to Army positions so artillery and airstrike offensives were conducted,” Encinas said. (PNA)
