MANILA, Philippines—Hunger and disease stalk makeshift camps for people forced out of their homes in the current fighting in Mindanao and mothers risk getting caught in the crossfire so they can go back to their war-torn villages to get food to feed their children.

This grim condition of thousands of people displaced by the month-long fighting between government forces and recalcitrant commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) was reported by the respected British charity Oxfam in a statement Thursday.
Lan Mercado, country director of Oxfam, disputed claims by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita on Wednesday that there was no humanitarian crisis in Mindanao and that the situation there was “not that bad.”

“The humanitarian needs in Mindanao are real. The armed conflict has caused suffering for civilians and worsened their experience of poverty,” Mercado said.

“Government and other civil society agencies are doing what we can but, at the same time, we continue to see evacuees who go hungry at shelters, contract diseases, and worry for their future. Civilians live in fear for their safety and lives because of the presence of armed groups in their villages. Children have also stopped going to school,” she said.

“Aid from government and NGOs alike will not meet all the needs if more and more civilians get mired in the conflict. It is important that state and non-state authorities who have the responsibility to protect civilians affected by the conflict recognize and put their rights and immediate needs front and center,” Mercado said.

Mothers risk life and limb

“Oxfam has seen how mothers risk life and limb by going back to their homes to pick vegetables for their children. Without enough food to go around, mothers sometimes give up meals for their children,” the statement said.

“Evacuees, who are usually farmers, sell farm animals that are crucial to their livelihood, thereby putting long-term livelihoods recovery at risk. Many internally displaced persons (IDPs) have gone to barangay interiors, which are hard or impossible to reach by aid,” it said.

“It is civilians who lose the most in times of conflict. Women, in particular, are hit the hardest as they take care of the well-being of the family amidst uncertainty. They have to constantly worry about their husbands’ and children’s safety,” Mercado said.

“Women have to accept odd, sometimes risky, jobs to supplement the family income because they cannot continue with their usual economic activities that get disrupted by hostilities. Many succumb to stress-related diseases,” she said.

UN appeal for funds

The World Food Program (WFP) said around 500,000 people had been displaced by the fighting in Mindanao. The UN food agency has been providing a month’s ration of 25 kilos of rice for each displaced family, but its annual budget for IDPs has been depleted by the current conflict.

The WFP has issued an appeal for funds, fearing that with monsoon flooding and an expected escalation of violence at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, it cannot cope with a swelling IDP population.

However, no substantial donation has come in, said WFP country director Stephen Anderson. None will be forthcoming, he said, unless the government sounds an appeal—something that Ermita said on Wednesday was not necessary at this point because the government has enough resources to deal with the problem.

“Like Burma, we don’t need international aid agencies,” said one political analyst, referring tongue in cheek to reclusive Burma’s refusal to allow foreign assistance in spite of the massive devastation caused by a cyclone in May that killed more than 80,000 people.

DSWD aid insufficient

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) provides evacuees with a three-day food package consisting of three kilos of rice, five packs of noodles and three cans of sardines per family.

Local aid workers in Maguindanao said that the DSWD assistance was not enough for the displaced, some of whom have been in the camps for over a month.

The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross provides plastic sheets that the evacuees use as tents in the camps, where there is no sanitation facilities or potable water.

Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the Philippine National Red Cross, has urged the government to comply with the minimum standards of humanitarian law, pointing out that displaced civilians crammed in makeshift evacuation camps are noncombatants and need protection and assistance.