3 killed in Maguindanao del Sur ambush

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Three men, two of them members of the Citizens Armed Forces Geographic Unit, were killed in an ambush in Barangay Manungkaling in Mamasapano, Maguindanao del Sur del Sur on Saturday morning, November 7.

Officials of the Maguindanao del Sur Provincial Police Office and local executives said the militiamen Samsamin Labay Kabagani and Danny Minandang and their civilian companion, Esmael Manabilang, died from multiple bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

They were riding a motorcycle together when they were waylaid by gunmen at a stretch of highway in a secluded area in Barangay Manungkaling.

Their ambushers immediately escaped using getaway motorcycles, leaving all three of them sprawled on the concrete road, lifeless.

Barangay officials and investigators from the Mamasapano Municipal Police Station had separately reported that a villager, Mohamidin Udal Usman, who was hit by a stray bullet as the ambushers opened fire at their targets, is now confined to a hospital.

Local executives, Moro datus in Mamasapano, one of the 22 towns in Maguindanao del Sur, and police investigators are cooperating in putting a close to the incident, according to officials of the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region.