ARMM disperses more relief supplies for Marawi folk

COTABATO CITY --- Officials dispatched on Tuesday 26 truckloads more of relief supplies for 13 towns in Lanao del Sur that adopted evacuees from Marawi City.The conflict-torn Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur, a component province of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).The shipment of the relief provisions was facilitated by ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman and his regional executive secretary, Laisa Alamia.Evacuees now in Bacolod Calawi, Kapai, Wao, Madamba and Lumbayanague towns are to receive the ARMM humanitarian aid via the local government units there.Eight other municipalities, Bubong, Piagapo, Poona-Bayabao, Buadipuso, Lumba-Bayabao, Maguing, Molundo and Ditsaan Ramain, shall receive relief supplies from ARMM through the Lanao del Sur provincial government.The ARMM health department has provided medical services to 63,398 evacuees, mostly children and elderly folk, in operations that began two days after the May 23 outbreak of Hostilities in Marawi City until July 30.The hostilities between government forces and combined Abu Sayyaf gunmen and Maute terrorists in Marawi City that erupted on May 23 have since dragged on.More than 300,000 villagers were dislocated by the conflict, a big number of them now in squalid evacuation sites in nearby ARMM towns and in Lanao del Norte province in Region 10.The 13 Lanao del Sur towns the ARMM government provided on Tuesday with relief supplies through the regional government’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) were among the first to adopt internally displaced people (IDP) from Marawi City.Lanao del Sur has 39 towns divided into two congressional districts.Hataman told reporters the government has imposed measures to ensure that the supplies are distributed only to real evacuees in dire need of relief and rehabilitation support.Hataman, who has ministerial control over HEART, said many of the IDP from Marawi City now have disaster assistance family access cards as basis for releases to them of food supplies and other provisions on periodic basis. The supplies they will receive each time shall be recorded on their access cards, Hataman said.Reports obtained from HEART’s office in Cotabato City indicated that as of July 27, there are now 47,102 house-based IDP, whose needs the Lanao del Sur Crisis Management Committee and the ARMM are now helping provide.The term house-based IDP refers to conflict-stricken folks now confined in their houses but no longer have means of livelihood and those who had relocated to houses of relatives outside of troubled or calamity-hit areas.