Add'l site for Zamboanga siege evacuees eyed

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines - The Zamboanga City government and the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) are working to lease a 25-hectare private property near the devastated district for the establishment of additional transitory site to provide a safer place for the remaining hundreds of evacuees displaced by the siege of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) Misuari faction since last year.

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman said there is a need to move out about 3,168 families of the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the Joaquin F. Enriquez Memoria Sports Complex (JFEMSC), the main evacuation camp, and those at the shoreline of Cawa-Cawa Boulevard. 

Evacuees that continued to occupy other evacuation camps are in East Central School and Talon-Talon Elementary School, but are also needed to be relocated to allow the school to use the classrooms.

Soliman made the urgent call after her visit with the delegates from the European Union and United Nation to personally assess the conditions of the IDPs the and progress of providing shelters to the evacuees before they will be eventually moved back to the rehabilitated barangays of Mariki, Rhio Hondo, Sta. Barbara and Sta. Catalina.

The attack, that ran for about a month, affected 23,794 families or 118, 819 persons and destroyed a total of 10,160 houses from the four barangays.

“Work is in progress for the rehabilitation of the sites and those who remained in the evacuation camps were in their early recovery stage but the real challenge is we have to move the people out into a better shelter as soon as we can,” Soliman said. 

Currently, at least seven transitory sites and bunkhouses have been established and were already occupied by the IDPs, who voluntarily moved out from the evacuation camps. These transitory shelters includes JFEMSC Grandstand Bunkhouses, Tulungatung Transitional Shelter, Taluksangay Transitional Shelter, Rio Hondo Transitional Shelter, Mampang Transitional Shelter, PTSI-Philippine Tuberculosis Society, Inc. in Upper Calarian, and Sta.Catalina (Paniran), a single detached recovery shelter.

The Local Inter-Agency Committee approved a resolution requesting the owner of the 38-hectare property in Kasanyangan that the government will purchase for permanent shelters, to allow the free use of the adjacent 25-hectare lot as a transitory site, said Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar.

If granted, the 25-hectare area will be used as temporary shelter for the IDPs occupying the grandstand and the two schools- Zamboanga East and West Central Schools, Salazar said. 

The bunkhouses and temporary shelters are being constructed by the military engineering brigade with the help of humanitarian organizations, such as the International Organization for Migration and Habitat for Humanity.