COTABATO CITY, Philippines—At least 6,000 people have fled their homes in coastal villages in Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat provinces amid continuing clashes between two Moro rebel groups, local officials and the military said.

Mayor Manot Sinsuat of Datu Blah Sinsuat, Maguindanao, said the evacuees, mostly Maguindanaoans, have built makeshift shelters in nearby villages.

Army Lt. Col. Jonathan Ponce, 6th Infantry Division spokesperson, said the armed conflict involved Jing Caludtiag, said to be the chief of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) 104th Base Command, and Randy Karon of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF).

Ponce said trouble started when Caludtiag and his men raided MNLF communities under Karon in Barangay Tran, Lebak, Sultan Kudarat, last month in an apparent retaliation to attacks on the MILF officer’s followers who roam MNLF peace and development communities in Barangay Tran.

Karon, a former natural and environment secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, said his men were simply enforcing a local ban on the carrying of firearms in peace and development areas identified in a peace agreement between the MNLF and the government.

“It was a case of rido,” Ponce said in a radio interview. “The military has sent a peacekeeping force.”

Last month, he said, Caludtiag’s followers ambushed a vehicle of Karon in Lebak, killing his driver and wounding two others, including his younger brother Bobby, a village chair.

Since then, fighting between the two groups have erupted, forcing villagers to flee.

Early this week, about 500 MILF rebels were sighted in coastal villages near the borders of Maguindanao and Sultan Kudarat, Ponce said.

Mayor Sinsuat said efforts were underway to settle the dispute.

ARMM Gov. Zaldy Ampatuan has directed Tahir Sulaik, health regional secretary, to attend to the health needs of the displaced families.

Ampatuan, in a statement, said the regional social welfare office has been providing food and other needs to the civilians.

Eid Kabalu, MILF spokesperson, acknowledged that Caludtiag is a rebel commander, but that the group was not supporting his quarrel with Karon.

“We are helping resolve the conflict,” Kabalu said in a text message.

Ansao Balang, a coastal villager who fled to Cotabato City, said the situation in his community was worsening. “We were dislocated, our livelihood and source of income were gone, our farm produce were taken by the gunmen,” he said.

Balang said the fighting might spread to nearby barangays.

source: inquirer.net

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