Feuding Moro clans torch 30 Maguindanao houses

COTABATO CITY, Philippines – Members of two feuding Moro clans set on fire more than 30 houses as they fought for control of patches of land at the border of Maguindanao’s adjoining Pagalungan and Montawal towns yesterday, forcing hundreds of villagers to evacuate to neutral grounds.

Superintendent Danilo Bacas, spokesman of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao police, said more than a hundred policemen were deployed in Pagalungan and Montawal to act as “buffer troops” to prevent escalation of hostilities between the two families.

“The two clans are fighting for control of lands and vote-rich villages there. Everything is being done now to prevent the conflict from getting worse,” Bacas said.

Bacas said the two feuding groups are separately identified with rival political camps in the two towns.

Bacas said their regional director, Chief Superintendent Bensali Jabarani, and the ARMM governor, Datu Zaldy Ampatuan, have sent emissaries to the feuding clans to convince them to reposition away from the areas where they have been fighting each other in one encounter after ano­ther since early this week.

Bacas’ policemen from the ARMM regional police headquarters have also been deployed along strategic stretches in Pagalungan and Montawan of the Cotabato-Davao Highway to prevent any of the feuding groups from getting close to the thoroughfare.

Local officials said seven gunmen from both families, armed with military-type assault rifles and shoulder-fire grenades, have been wounded in their encounters the past three days.