Stray bullet claims third victim in Marawi capitol compound

MARAWI CITY – A 55-year-old evacuee was hit by a wayward caliber 5.56 bullet as he was resting at his family’s assigned quarters on the second floor of a government building inside the provincial capitol here on Thursday.

Sulaiman Mangorsi said he had come from the toilet and decided to lay down near his wife, Suhayla, when he suddenly felt a stinging pain in the upper left arm around 3 p.m.

His left arm suddenly became numbed and when he checked, he said saw he had been wounded.

Mangorsi said he immediately yelled for help and was rushed to the Amai Pakpak Medical Center, about a kilometer away.

“I had to be operated on because the bullet lodged into the muscle. It even hit the surface of my bone,” he told the Inquirer.

He said after the operation, it was found out that what hit him was a lead from a caliber 5.56 ammunition.

A source told the Inquirer that a few hours before Mangorsi was hit, a soldier at the military brigade headquarter adjacent to the capitol compound was also injured by a bullet.

The military did not confirm or deny the report.

Thursday’s incident was the third one that occurred inside the capitol compound.

On June 22, as Ismail Saripada, a provincial utility worker, was going about his job, a stray bullet hit him shortly before 4 p.m.

The incident involving Saripada came about a week after Australian journalist Adam Harvey was also hit by a wayward bullet on the neck while taking a break near the Infirmary. Harvey had to be operated on so the bullet could be removed.

Bullets regularly rained on the capitol, where some 1,600 people – evacuees, government officials, journalists, soldiers and military men – converge on a daily basis.