COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government condemned the bombings on Monday in Jolo, Sulu that killed at least nine people and injured 20 others.
Naguib Sinarimbo, local government minister of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said BARMM Chief Minister Hadji Ahod Ebrahim has directed the regional police to identify the culprits for prosecution.
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"The BARMM leadership condemns these bombings in strongest terms. We also share with the grief of those who lost relatives in the incident," said Sinarimbo, spokesman of the Bangsamoro regional government.
At least nine people, four of them Army personnel, were killed in the separate explosions that ripped through a commercial hub in Jolo, capital town of Sulu, touted as the country’s most dangerous province.
According to latest reports from the ground in Jolo, six soldiers, a police officer and four civilians were killed and 43 others were injured in the blasts.
The first explosion happened before noon on Monday, near a roadside eatery along Serantes Street in Jolo’s Barangay Walled City, a trading hub.
An unidentified rider reportedly parked a bomb-laden motorcycle near an idle Army truck surrounded by soldiers and detonated the explosive from a distance using a mobile phone.
Another powerful improvised explosive device went off about an hour later just meters away from the scene of the first explosion.
The second bombing injured soldiers and emergency responders sifting through the scene of the first explosion.
Sinarimbo said the BARMM government is ready to extend help to the victims of the bombings.