ZAMBOANGA CITY, 5 December 2003 — Six people, all of them Muslims, have been murdered in two separate attacks in the southern Philippines since Monday, officials said yesterday.
Four of the victims were killed by unidentified men in an attack on a remote village in the southern port city of Zamboanga, police said.
Police said the attack occurred late Wednesday in Muti village near where three Muslim worshippers were seized last week inside a mosque and tater killed. The gunmen fled after the killing. The four were walking on their way home in the village when gunmen attacked them, police said.
No group claimed responsibility for the latest killing in Zamboanga City. Last week, local officials buried at least 49 mostly victims of summary executions and unclaimed the past two years in a common grave.
Zamboanga City has lately grabbed the local headlines because of the spate of unresolved murders. Most of the victims were believed to be Muslims, who had been shot in the head, and some of the bodies bore signs of torture.
One victim Akmad, who had survived an attack, implicated local policemen, but he was shot in the head by a lone assassin while on his way testify to court, a local television news channel Chavacano Patrol reported late Wednesday.
The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) is currently investigating the report.
In the village of Buluan in Kabacan town of North Cotabato province, two brothers were killed when gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons as they were working in their farm on Monday.
A third brother survived the attack and is recuperating at an undisclosed clinic in Kabaca, said Col. Fredesvindo Covarrubias, commander of the military’s 4th Civil Relations Group (CRG).
He said other farmers discovered the wounded victim Papa Mangumbas and the bodies of his brothers Nasrudin, 16, and Maidu, 10, and informed the village chieftain Toto Mantawil about the murders.
“Police and military and civilians who volunteer to help us were tracking down the assailants and investigating the motive of the attack,” Covarrubias told reporters in news briefing in Zamboanga City.
Latest military reports suggested the attack could have been triggered off by a family feud. The military did not say if it made any arrest, but soldiers have seized a small cache of weapons, mostly automatic rifles and pistols on Wednesday at a house in the farming village of Tawiran in nearby town of Datu Odin Sinsuat, Covarrubias said.
