Vendor slightly hurt in one of two Basilan IED blasts
BANGSAMORO NEWS UPDATES • 12:15 PM Tue May 31, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
An military ordnance expert sifts through a blast scene in Isabela City. (Karl Ignacio)
CAMP SK PENDATUN, Maguindanao --- An ambulant roadside vendor was slightly hurt (not two as earlier reported-ed) in one of two explosions that rocked Isabela City in Basilan one after another at dusk Monday.
The victim, Evangeline Gudilla Francisco, who sustained superficial shrapnel wounds, is now recuperating in a hospital.
The first blast was in the vicinity of a Jollibee food outlet in the city proper of Isabela.
Security camera recordings showed that the improvised explosive device used in the attack, inside a yellow plastic bag, was left by a man on a motorcycle and went off in less than three minutes after the suspect had sped away.
Officials of the Army’s 101st Infantry Brigade and the Basilan Provincial Police Office said the IED was detonated from a distance using a mobile phone.
Another explosion rocked several minutes later the premises of a private bus terminal in Valderosa Street in Isabela City’s Barangay La Piedad, a little farther from the scene of the first explosion.
The IED was placed in a box delivered by someone, for shipment to somewhere via the unit 281 of the Biel Transportation Company.
In an initial report, the Basilan provincial police said a vigilant militiaman guarding the private terminal noticed something inside the package, hurled it away and exploded as it landed on a concrete pavement.
Francisco, who was near the scene, was hit by fragments of the IED, according to police investigators. (John Unson)