Innocent villager dead in Palimbang clan war
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 12:15 PM Sat Jun 22, 2019
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By:
John M. Unson
SULTAN KUDARAT ---- An adolescent villager was killed while dozens of families got dislocated in a spate of gunfights involving two rival Moro groups in the seaside Palimbang town Friday.
The fatality was identified as Richard Tulik, a high school student.
Reports from the Regional Police Office-12 said the enemy groups, one led by Mike Binago and the other by allies Salik Adam and Tat Tuan, first clashed in Barangay Molon, sending hundreds of villagers running for their lives.
The two heavily-armed groups are locked in longtime squabbles for control of villages in the area whose residents they subject to collection of “protection money” on periodic basis.
Tulik was trapped in the crossfire as the running firefights spilled over to hinterland farming enclaves near the border of Palimbang and Lake Sebu town in South Cotabato.