COTABATO CITY – Renegade Moro rebels gunned down a soldier and seriously wounded another in an ambush at a secluded stretch of the national highway in nearby Datu Odin Sinsuat, Shariff Kabunsuan yesterday.
Police investigators in Datu Odin Sinsuat town identified the slain soldier only as Pvt. Vidad, who belonged to the Army’s 6th Infantry Battalion, a unit of the 6th Infantry Division.
Vidad’s wounded companion was brought by responding policemen and soldiers to a hospital here for treatment.
Lt. Col. Julieto Ando, spokesman of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division, said the soldiers were on their way to a roadside outpost at the border of Barangays Makir and Gubat in Datu Odin Sinsuat when renegade members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) opened fire, provoking a running gunbattle.
Although outnumbered, Ando said the combatants of the 6th IB engaged their ambushers and managed to drive them away after a brief firefight.
Ando said witnesses confirmed seeing the ambushers carry four wounded companions as they fled in haste.
“We are not sure yet if those carried away by the rebels from the scene of the encounter were already dead or just wounded,” Ando said.
Local officials said the attack forced more than two dozen families to flee their homes.
More than 500 families from several barangays in Datu Odin Sinsuat are still languishing in makeshift evacuation sites as a consequence of previous military-MILF clashes at the border of the municipality and Talayan, Maguindanao.
US Ambassador Kristie Kenney and Stephen Anderson of the World Food Program toured the evacuation sites in Datu Odin Sinsuat last Nov. 21 and distributed cereals and fortified biscuits to hundreds of evacuees.