COTABATO CITY—Army soldiers on Sunday killed an 11-year-old girl and wounded two other persons in a raid on an alleged hideout of terrorists involved in the July 5 bombing near the Immaculate Conception Cathedral here, Mayor Muslimin Sema said.
Sema said members of Task Force Tugis, who are hunting those responsible for the bombing that killed six people, swooped down on a shanty at the city’s boundary with Sultan Kudarat town in Maguindanao province at 2 a.m.
“I was told the soldiers did not even knock on the door, did not search the house properly. They just opened fire,” Sema said in a radio interview on Monday.
The girl’s family was asleep when the soldiers arrived and, without warning, began firing, he said.
Sema, chair of the City Peace and Order Council, did not identify the fatality, but said the girl was a Grade 5 pupil at Muammad Elementary School.