100 families displaced in Army-NPA fighting in Iligan

ILIGAN CITY –– More than 100 families from Sitio Duwa-duwa of Barangay Kalilangan here have refused to go back to their homes, one week after fleeing from fighting between Army troops and suspected New People’s Army (NPA) forces.

“They are not yet returning to their houses because the military is still pursuing the armed men. They are afraid there will be a firefight again,” Kalilangan Barangay Chair Alimoding Mansumayan said.

Mansumayan said the families were staying in two mosques and the barangay hall.

The families packed their things on July 25 and moved to the village center and in nearby Barangay Rogongon after a clash between Army troops and armed men suspected to be NPA members left a government troop wounded.

The Army troops were conducting civil-military operations activities last July 25 in Duwa-duwa when they encountered the armed men.

Rogongon Chair Randy Pugoy hoped the tension in their communities could ease soon so that the classes of some 130 elementary school children would not be disrupted.

The City Social Welfare and Development Office is awaiting completion of evacuee profiles so they could be given relief assistance. /lzb