ZAMBOANGA CITY, 13 December 2004 — At least 14 people were killed and dozens more were injured by an explosion that tore through a public market packed with Christmas shoppers yesterday in the southern Philippine port city of General Santos, officials said.
The mid-afternoon blast, apparently from a homemade bomb concealed in a box, killed three people instantly and destroyed at least two stalls in the market’s meat section, said police Superintendent Willy Dangane.
Eleven other victims later died in hospitals, he added.
One of the dead was a five-year-old boy.
“Many of those wounded suffered serious injuries,” said Lt. Col. Buenaventura Pascual, a military spokesman in the southern island of Mindanao, where General Santos City is located.
No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack, which came despite a government campaign to flush out suspected Jemaah Islamiyah and Abu Sayyaf terrorists in the south.
The military has linked both groups to the Al-Qaeda network and terror campaign in the Philippines that left hundreds of people dead and wounded the past years.
The Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed more than 100 people on a ferry leaving Manila in February.
General Santos, a bustling port city about 300 kilometers east of Zamboanga City, is also near the strongholds of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which is currently negotiating a peaceful settlement of its decades-long war with the Philippine government.
Meanwhile, in the troubled southern island of Jolo, a government agency official was shot dead by suspected rebels, police said yesterday.
Roel Andan, a provincial director of the Philippine Coconut Authority, was on his way to a public market of Jolo, about 130 kilometers southwest of Zamboanga City, when he was attacked on Saturday. Zamboanga is about 950 kilometers south of Manila.
Senior Superintendent Suwaybon Jalad of the Jolo police said a lone gunman shot Andan at close range in the head.
“We found a 45-caliber pistol on the victim, but he was not able to fight back,” he said. “The victim died on the spot, and the killer fled on foot.”
Jalad said investigators suspect that Abu Sayyaf rebels were behind the killing.
“The victim might have been mistaken for a civilian agent by the bandits,” he said. “We are still investigating.”
