10-year-old boy killed, 2 minors injured in Cotabato explosion

COTABATO CITY — A 10-year-old boy died instantly, while two other minors were seriously injured in a powerful explosion that ripped through one side of a river in Sitio Danao in Barangay Ganatan in Arakan town in Cotabato province on Monday morning, June 22.

Local executives and officials of the Arakan Municipal Police Station separately told reporters at noon Monday that a Grade 4 pupil died instantly from injuries sustained in the blast.

The explosion left two others, a 17-year-old and eight-year-old wounded. They were immediately transported by municipal emergency responders to a hospital for treatment. 

Major Reynante Pascua, Arakan municipal police chief, and his superiors in the Cotabato Provincial Police Office told reporters that the victims were swimming in the river in Sitio Danao, Barangay Ganatan, while villagers nearby were washing clothes along its banks when a powerful explosion rocked the area.

Local executives and police investigators who responded to the incident were still trying to determine, as of Monday afternoon, what type of explosive went which cause the death of the ten-year-old boy.

Barangay officials said it is possible that either someone hurled a fragmentation grenade at the victims from a distance, or that an unexploded 40 millimeter grenade projectile, or a mortar round detonated at the spot where the victims were swimming.

Major Gen. Alvin Luzon, commander of the Army’s 10th Infantry Division, said officials and intelligence agents of the 72nd Infantry Battalion, which has troops in Arakan, will assist the police in investigating the incident.