Displaced families ask BIFF to help build peace in Maguindanao

By: Philippines News Agency

InterAksyon.com

The online news portal of TV5

MIDSAYAP, North Cotabato - Displaced families have appealed to Moro rebels to put a stop to skirmishes and help bring peace in their communities.

Thousands of residents of barangays in Datu Piang and Datu Shariff Saydona have fled to barangay Macasendeg in Midsayap to avoid getting caught in the crossfire when government forces and Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) clashed last week.

Rahima Ganding, 48, a mother of four, said they are tired of war and evacuation. "I hope this is the last time we flee and live in evacuation sites," she said, adding that she and her family were raring to return home.

Macasendeg is now a temporary home to about 250 families from nearby Datu Shariff Saydona Mustapha and Datu Piang in Maguindanao where government forces and BIFF had fought each other for a week.

"We want to go home, life at evacuation center is difficult," she said in the vernacular.

Another evacuee, Sultan Sumalindong, 50, farmer and fisherman, has been praying that the armed conflict in Maguindanao will come to an end one day. "We are the most affected, our children could not go to school because we need to evacuate," Sumalindong said.

The most difficult part of evacuation, Sumalindong said, is the horrible situation at their makeshift homes made of empty sacks and tarpaulin—which are very hot at daytime.

Another evacuee, who asked not to be named because he has friends and relatives in the BIFF, said he hoped the rebel groups would cease fighting the government and instead return to the mainstream.

"I know many of them were just influenced by their rebel leaders, I know they were young to carry guns," he said, adding that it was true some BIFF members were child warriors.

"The Moro Islamic Liberation Front is talking peace, I hope they too will abide by the agreement between the MILF and government," he added in the vernacular.

Sumalindong and Ganding were among the 10,000 individuals displaced by the armed conflict that started February and ended a week later with the fall of BIFF camps and death of about 50 fighters.

Some of them have returned home but many prefer to stay in various evacuation sites in Datu Piang, Datu Saudi Ampatuan and in several villages of Midsayap for fear fighting might erupt again.

Speaking for the regional Army unit pursuing the BIFF, Colonel Dickson Hermoso said the Army terminated the offensive the other day but remained on alert as the BIFF merely splintered into smaller groups and may regroup and renew hostilities.

Relief, medical services

On Friday, the Humanitarian Emergency Assistance Response Team (HEART), the relief unit of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), distributed relief goods to displaced families in Barangay Macasendeg, Midsayap, North Cotabato who were from the towns of Datu Piang and Shariff Sayodona in Maguindanao. The relief team served 758 families with 3790 individuals in the area.

The evacuees said the relief goods from the ARMM government will help them get by the hardship of life in the evacuation center. Besides relief goods and medical service, evacuees also got a get free haircut.

Lawyer Laisa Alamia, ARMM executive secretary, said ARMM HEART targets to cater all affected families in identified evacuation sites.

She said similar relief operations will be conducted in other evacuation sites in the days ahead. “We like to let these displaced families feel that they are not being neglected by the government,” she said.