5 die as MILF infighting continues in NoCot
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 06:45 AM Sat Aug 13, 2022
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By:
Williamor Magbanua and Edwin O. Fernandez
DXND reporters interview a village councilman in Barangay Ladtingan, the village next to Macabual where MILF infighting have erupted. (DXND photo)
KIDAPAWAN CITY — At least five people, four belonging to Moro armed group, were killed when two rebel groups figured in an infighting in Pikit, North Cotabato.
The fighting believed to be an offshoot of the murder of a village chair involved Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerillas in Barangay Macabual also sent about 100 villagers fleeing to nearby communities amid floods the submerged many barangays in Pikit.
MILF leaders have sent mediators to prevent the conflict from getting out of hand and to allow relief agencies to provide emergency assistance to some 10,000 families displaced by natural calamity.
DXNS Radyo Bida reported that among those killed was mentally-challenged Lito Quinunez of Barangay Ladtingan.
Quiñunez was fleeing when the groups of Bugdad Akas and Walid Mamasamlang, both MILF local leaders in Macabual, traded bullets and rocket propelled grenades, accorignto, Police Maj. Maxim Peralta, Pikit municipal police chief..
Police and soldiers from the 602nd Infantry Brigade have been deployed as well as Task Force Ittihad (Peace) of the MILF.
About 100 families from Macabual have fled to Barangay Lower Ladtingan to avoid getting hit by bullets from warring groups who, incidentely, are related by blood and by affinity.
Peralta said the conflict erupted weeks the killing of Macabual village chair Jalandoni Matalam Akas, whose family blamed MILF leader Mamasamlang.
He said peacekeepers have been deployed near Macabual “to prevent spillover of the conflict” while emissaries from the MILF central committee were in the area to diffuse tension.
“There were evacuees but many stayed with their relatives in nearby communities,” Peralta added.
Macabual, a village with a population of about 4,500 based on the 2020 census, is now part of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao after it voted to join the Bangsamoro region even as Pikit itself remained with Cotabato province.
Macabual is no longer within the operational area of Pikit PNP since it now belonged to PNP in the Bangamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (PRO-BARMM).
But he stressed that security civilians from harm recognizes no boundaries.
Guns have been silent on Friday night.
Below is the late Barangay Macabual chairperson Jalandoni Matalam Akas.
