MANILA, 23 March 2003 — Thousands of commuters were stranded yesterday as government troops put up roadblocks along the highway linking North Cotabato and Davao following fresh clashes with Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) fighters.
Several hundred vehicles bound for Davao City were held at Aleosan town hall while those bound for Cotabato City were stranded at Pikit town stretching all the way to Pagalungan town in Maguindanao province.
Maj. Julieto Ando of the army’s 6th Infantry Division said normal traffic would resume once the area has been cleared of rebels.
“This would be very brief. The ground commanders would just like to insure the safety of the commuters when they pass through the highway,” he said.
MILF fighters reportedly attempted to occupy the highway, which passes through the war-ravaged town of Pikit in North Cotabato, triggering a firefight in the village of Dilangawen in Pikit as soldiers came.
The military had no report of casualties on both sides but the MILF said they lost one fighter and claimed to have killed five soldiers and injured many more.
MILF field commander Abu Hashim said MILF fighters also fired an RPG bomb on a military jeep in Pikit yesterday afternoon. He said their fighters were not able to make a body count because army reinforcements arrived immediately.
MILF forces also attacked a military detachment yesterday at Barangay Bagakay in Alabel town of Sarangani, killing seven soldiers, Abu Hashim said.
Late on Friday, suspected MILF fighters blasted an electrical post in North Cotabato, knocking out power to Tantangan, a town of 30,000 people, said police Senior Superintendent Romeo Rufino said.
Bombs were also found on two other electrical posts in the town, near the city of General Santos, but these were defused by explosives experts, Rufino said.
MILF spokesman Eid Kabalu assured the public that they would spare civilians from the fighting.
“We are only responding to a war imposed by the military; but we will repeat that civilians are not our targets,” he said.
Government troops and the MILF were engaged in clashes since February this year after the military assaulted and overran one of the rebel strongholds near Pikit town.
Despite the renewed violence, the government continues to seek the mediation of Malaysia to reopen peace talks with the rebel group, which has been fighting for almost three decades to set up a separate Islamic state in the south.
7 More Kids Die
In Pikit, seven more children died of various illnesses on Thursday due to poor sanitation in evacuation centers, bringing to a total of 23 the death toll in the fighting that started here on Feb. 11.
Father Roberto Layson, parish priest, said he expected more fatalities even as government health workers and volunteer groups struggled to protect the refugees, particularly youngsters, against the deadly measles and respiratory illnesses. The young ones had the most difficult time coping with the centers’ “deplorable” state, Layson told the Inquirer.
At least 36,000 people, 15,000 of them children, have been crammed in ill-equipped refugee sites since the hostilities broke out.
Dr. Roger Chua, health director for Central Mindanao, said he had deployed a team of physicians to augment the town’s health personnel.
Recently, the government declared the whole of Pikit as a peace zone and urged the evacuees to go home, but they refused to budge, fearing sporadic skirmishes.
“There is no indication that the suffering will be over soon,” Layson said. “Just last night, we heard gunfire.”
Chua reported that health workers were conducting a massive immunization campaign for children against infectious diseases.
However, volunteers said, only 5,000 had been vaccinated as of Saturday because parents were not cooperative. They are very suspicious of anything from the government, according to one health worker.
Volunteer groups said almost all of the children suffered from malnutrition, in varying degrees, which made them susceptible to infection.