UN helps ARMM send aid to Zamboanga

COTABATO CITY, Philippines - The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) helped the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao put up its latest relief mission for internally-displaced people in Zamboanga City, ARMM officials said Saturday.

ARMM Gov. Mujiv Hataman, who has been supervising since Tuesday the regional government’s relief operations in support of the humanitarian missions of the Zamboanga City crisis management committee led by Mayor Isabelle Climaco, said the UNHCR’s office in Cotabato City supported by providing hygiene kits for the evacuees.

“We are grateful to the UNHCR. The support its officials in Mindanao had extended to us will go a long way,” Hataman told The Star via mobile phone.

Hataman said the ARMM’s latest shipment of three truckloads from Cotabato City of relief supplies from the regional government arrived in Zamboanga City late Thursday and are now being dispersed to evacuees confined in temporary relief sites.

“There is no discrimination in the dispersal of the relief supplies. These are to distributed to evacuees regardless of whether they are Zamboanga City residents, or are from any of the ARMM’s Basilan, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi island provinces,” Hataman said.

The ARMM’s executive secretary, Laisa Alamia, said the latest shipment of relief good they dispatched to Zamboanga City will still be augmented with other humanitarian interventions member-agencies of the region’s newly-established Humanitarian Emergency Action and Response Team, or HEART contingent, can extend to evacuees.

The HEART contingent was organized by Hataman and the office of Alamia two months ago to respond to emergencies booted by the recent armed conflicts and flashfloods that hit several areas in Maguindanao.

Alamia said the ARMM government is grateful to the UNHCR helping in its relief missions for thousands of evacuees displaced by the violent forays of followers of Nur Misuari.

“The City of Zamboanga is doing an excellent job in managing this `crisis response’ action. They have called on us for additional help, and we are glad to respond to the needs of the most vulnerable,” Arjun Jain, most senior official of the UNHCR in Mindanao told The Star.

Alamia and Hataman said their main concern now is how the HEART can effectively respond to the needs of hundreds of evacuees in Lamitan City, capital of Basilan, dislocated by a spate of attacks by gunmen that started Thursday morning.

Army and police intelligence sources, among them officials of the ARMM police headquarters in Camp S.K. Pendatun town in Maguindanao’s Parang town, said the gunmen that raided four barangays in Lamitan City the past three days were comprised of followers of Misuari, members of the brigand Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters of the renegade jihadist Imam Umbra Kato, and Abu Sayyaf bandits under the group of Purudji Indama.

Hataman proceeded to Lamitan City Saturday morning using a borrowed boat to personally assess the extent of the displacement caused by the hostilities in four of the city’s barangays.

The seaport of Lamitan City remained closed to freight and passenger watercrafts since the hostilities in Zamboanga City erupted last September 9.

Lamitan City Mayor Roderick Furigay, chair of the city’s peace and order council, said the evacuees are now housed in makeshift relief sites and houses of their relatives in the city proper.

Hostilities in Lamitan City waned before dawn Saturday, after soldiers shelled with 105 Howitzer Canons and 81 MM mortars the position of the rebels that attempted to intrude in the city through four barangays which they attacked repeatedly Thursday and until dusk the next day.

“They failed to breach the defense lines manned by armed civilians, civilian volunteers, policemen and soldiers. There were strong security coordination and cooperation from among Lamitan City’s Muslim and Christian communities too while security forces were engaged in firefight with rebels,” Furigay said.