Soldier shot while pacifying warring clans in Maguindanao del Norte

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — One of the soldiers dispatched to intervene in Friday’s Moro clan war in Bongo Island in Parang, Maguindanao del Norte was wounded when gunmen identified with one of the two rival groups they were to pacify shot them with automatic rifles.

Personnel of the 2nd Marine Battalion and the 65th Force Reconnaissance Company of the Philippine Marine Corps were on a sea patrol mission around Bongo Island in Parang to prevent a spill over of the gunfights between the feuding Aragasi and Usman clans in the area, but were fired at by supporters of one of the two factions.

The wounded soldier was immediately brought to the Army’s Camp Siongco Hospital in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte for treatment.

Seven were killed in Friday’s gunfights between the two groups in Tuka Maror in Bongo Island, locked in political disputes and squabbling for control of strategic patches of lands in the area.

Parang Mayor Cahar Ibay, chairperson of the municipality’s multi-sector peace and order council, and the director of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, Brig. Gen. Romeo Juan Macapaz, are cooperating in trying to settle amicably the “rido,” meaning clan war in Moro dialects, involving the Aragasi and Usman clans.