Rescuers intensify relocation of Marawi residents to safer areas

LANAO DEL SUR -- Rebuilding Marawi City, destroyed by the religious adventurism of a group tagged haram by moderate clerics long ago, is a big task officials are soon to carry on.The term haram is Arabic for forbidden, which members of the Darul Iftah (House of Opinion) in Regions 9 and 12 and in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) labelled on Maute and Abu Sayyaf terror groups even before their May 23 siege of Marawi City.Meantime, rescue and emergency groups have intensified the relocation to safe areas of Maranaw residents the military said were used as human shield by Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists that attacked and plundered their villages.Teams from the provincial government of Lanao del Sur and ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team (HEART) extricated more than 2,000 Maranaw and non-Muslim villagers from hostile areas in Marawi City in the past six days with the help of the police and the military.The rescued internally-displaced people, among them several ethnic Yakans from Basilan studying at the Mindanao State University, were immediately provided with rehabilitation support by the office of Lanao del Sur Vice Gov. Mamintal Adiong, Jr. and HEART workers.Lt. Col. Gerry Besana of the Army’s 6thCivil Military Operations Battalion of the 6thInfantry Division said the relief goods donated by the Maguindanao provincial government that they escorted to Marawi City on Thursday were delivered without hitches.Besana said the relief works of soldiers and volunteers from the office of Maguindanao Gov. Esmael Mangudadatu were punctuated by gunshots and explosions around villages they served. Everywhere in Marawi City you can see `bayanihan’ works by Muslim and Christian relief workers and rescuers. These are verytouching scenes, he said.Besana said the evacuees went hungry when Maute and Abu Sayyaf gunmen robbed them of food and ransacked stores abandoned by owners.Salma Jayne Tamano, Lanao del Sur’s provincial information officer, said 71 residents stranded in Pangarungan, Kadingilan and Moncado areas in Marawi City were rescued on Saturday morning and transported to a secured relief site.She said 38 teachers of the Dansalan College, whose buildings were set on fire by terrorists, had also been rescued on Saturday, now confined in a rehabilitation site, with adequate supply of food and water.ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, chairman of the regional peace and order council, said Saturday they have drafted a rehabilitation program for Marawi City that can be implemented after the military has cleared its barangays from Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists. It is subject to concurrence and conformity with the city government of Marawi and the provincial government of Lanao del Sur, Hataman said.Marawi City is the capital of Lanao del Sur, a component province of ARMM, which also covers Maguindanao and the island provinces of Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.More than 30 tons of relief supplies donated by local government units in Basilan are now being transported to Marawi City, to be turned over to officials overseeing evacuation sites.No fewer than 150,000 residents of Marawi City were dislocated by the hostilities precipitated by the incursions of Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists, now grouped as Dawlah Islamiya Philippines.Thousands of them are in evacuation sites in nearby Iligan City and in towns in Lanao del Norte.More than 30,000 are also in houses of relatives in safer areas, according to relief organizations now operating in Marawi City.Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Pinol said his agency also has contingency plans meant to hasten the recovery of conflict-affected farming communities in Marawi City and in nearby Lanao del Sur towns.He said the conflicts in the two areas militants had instigated have caused devastating setbacks on the lives of local farmers and Maranaws relying on fishing from Lake Lanao as main source of income. We are prepared to embark on projects needed to alleviate them from their sad situation, Pinol said.Lt. Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. of the Western Mindanao Command said on Saturday that relief works in Marawi City are now gaining headway with military units now occupying larger areas where militants had showed forced and displayed the flag of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.Galvez said military units that specializes in civil-military activities, such as the 6thCMO Battalion from Cotabato City, are now helping in the rehabilitation of displaced Marawi folk.