COTABATO CITY, Philippines — The Bangsamoro government facilitated initial relief support Monday for hundreds of residents in South Upi, Maguindanao displaced by attacks by armed groups last week.
The groups behind the attacks, operating in the fashion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, burned 13 houses in Barangay Itaw, South Upi and, subsequently, ambushed a convoy of local officials from a relief mission in the area three days later.
A villager was killed while three others, one of them a relief worker of the South Upi local government unit, were wounded in the ambush.
Monday’s outreach response for the evacuees was facilitated by the Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence, most known as the READI contingent of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.
The READI, which has a pool of quick deployment rescuers and emergency responders, is operating under the supervision of lawyer Naguib Sinarimbo, who is BARMM’s local government minister.
Sinarimbo, regional spokesperson of BARMM, said READI personnel and the region’s social welfare ministry will cooperate in addressing the needs of hundreds of conflict-stricken families in South Upi’s adjoining Barangays Itaw and Pandan.
South Upi Mayor Reynalbert Insular, the office of Sinarimbo, the Army’s 6th Infantry Division and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region are now cooperating in restoring normalcy in far-flung agricultural enclaves in the municipality gunmen had repeatedly attacked in recent months.
Insular was in the convoy of relief workers that gunmen targeted with a roadside bomb and shot with assault rifles while motoring through Sitio Panang in Barangay Pandan, en route to the town center from a humanitarian mission for displaced Barangay Itaw residents.
Armed men had earlier harassed repeatedly helpless residents of South Upi’s remote Barangays Kuya and Lamud in attacks that displaced hundreds of families, many still reluctant to return to their homes, worried of a repeat of the incidents.