BARMM helps families of fatalities in Kabacan atrocity
NORTH COTABATO --- The Bangsamoro government extended Thursday P70,000 financial assistance each to the families of the nine Moro men killed by gunmen in Kabacan town Saturday.
Lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, personally handed over P50,000 cash to each of the families of the victims during a dialogue in Kabacan, North Cotabato.
The assistance from BARMM’s Ministry of the Interior and Local Government was augmented with P20,000 individual tranches from the region’s social welfare ministry, according to Sinarimbo, concurrent spokesperson of the regional government.
The Bangsamoro government also provided each of the nine families with a bag of rice as initial humanitarian intervention.
Sinarimbo said the nine families want an impartial probe on the deaths of their relatives in the hands of still unidentified gunmen last Saturday in Barangay Aringgay in Kabacan, North Cotabato.
The victims, Kors Salilangan, Sandigan Zailon, Benladin Dimanalao, Musaid Jaiden, Romeo Balatamay, Katindig Kagayawon, Fahad Mandigan, Budsal Lipusan and Tong Guiaman, died from multiple bullet wounds.
They were on separate motorcycles en route to the town proper of Kabacan from Barangay Aringgay when their attackers blocked their route and killed them one after another using assault rifles.
Sinarimbo and other BARMM officials inspected the crime scene Thursday after a meeting with the nine grieving families.
Probers from the North Cotabato provincial police are still trying to determine the identities of the killers of the nine men and their real motive for the attack.
“Their families want an impartial probe on the incident. They want justice for their slain family members. The BARMM government had earlier urged for an impartial investigation on the incident,” Sinarimbo said.
North Cotabato Gov. Nancy Catamco, chairperson of the provincial peace and order council, said she is thankful to the BARMM government for helping the families of her nine constituents who perished in what seemed as an execution-style attack.
Catamco said her office and the local government unit of Kabacan are helping the police put closure to the carnage.