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PIKIT,
North Cotabato—Evacuees have turned some previously
uninhabited and untilled highway lots here into
mushrooming tent cities to escape the fighting that has
spilled occasionally to the national highways early this
week.
Mutalib
Mukalan, a member of the disaster management and the
committee on health of the Bangsamoro Development
Agency, said they have listed some 17 evacuation centers
spread in the town center, but many in the highway
clearings.
Fr. Gene
Gilos, of the Pikit Parish church said, though, that the
Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has
estimated a higher number, at 25 temporary encampments,
mostly using tarpaulin materials provided by the local
government.
From
only the first 300 evacuees on Saturday in the
evacuation center in the church gymnasium, and which
increased to 800 by Sunday, the number now was recorded
at 28,804 evacuees in Pikit alone.
Other
evacuations were reported in Midsayap and other towns
affected by the armed skirmishes between the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front guerrillas and the
military-backed militias.
The DSWD
record shows 2,696 heads of families staying in these
centers, and another 2,126 heads of families residing in
houses of relatives.
Mukalan
said his team from the BDA had recently been going
discreetly around the evacuation centers “to see the
real situation of the evacuees.”
“We even
visit them at night,” he added.
The BDA
is the unit that implements the development projects for
the erstwhile conflict areas in most of central and
southwestern Mindanao, as part of the agreement in the
peace talks pertaining to the agendum on relief and
rehabilitation of conflict-affected areas.
“We’ve
seen evacuees lying unprotected on cement floors. In the
tents, we see some of them drenched when it rains,” he
said.
“We
monitor their conditions and their necessities to ensure
their well-being. We also educate them on hygienic
practices, such as not to dispose of their wastes
anywhere, and not to get water from just anywhere,”
Mukalan told the BusinessMirror yesterday in the
warehouse-turned-evacuation center in barangay Buisan,
this town.
The
Armed Forces’ Eastern Mindanao Command said Midsayap has
14 evacuation centers, Aleosan has five, Libungan, four,
Pigcawayan, five, and Tulunan.
Major
Armand Rico, EastMinCom spokesman, said affected
residents have reached 16,922 families, or 87,297
evacuees.
Major
Gen. Armando Cunanan, EastMinCom commander, said
government troops already cleared 15 barangays affected
by the conflict that started last month. These were:
barangays Baliki, Lagumbingan, Upper Labas, Patindigan
ang Central Labas in Midsayap; barangays Bago Libas,
Dualing, Pagangan, Dungguan and Tapodok in Aleosan;
barangay Gumaga in Libungan; barangay Bualan in Pikit;
barangays Lower Baguer and Cabpengi in Pigcawayan; and
barangay Gayonga in Kabuntalan, Maguindanao.
“While
the group of MILF commander Ameril Umbra Kato has left,
the clearing process include the removal of mines and
explosives laid by the rebels as they left,” he said.
The Army has sent explosives and ordnance-disposal teams
“to ensure the safe return of residents,” he added.
Meanwhile, the EastMinCom also reported that another
incident of fighting broke out on Tuesday in Upper
Malamote, Matalam town of North Cotabato. Rico said
about 70 suspected MILF forces fired at the outpost of
the civilian volunteers organization and burned four
houses.
The
gunbattle lasted for 30 minutes before the MILF
guerrillas withdrew toward the western direction.
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