ILIGAN CITY—It has been more than three months since 48-year-old Fatima Lumabao lost her four children.
The children — Norhuda, 21; Rasida, 20; Parhana, 12; and Mohammad, 10 — disappeared amid the chaos that followed the rampage in Marawi City by Maute and Abu Sayyaf terrorists on May 23.
Lumabao, a widow, said she hoped her four children were still alive and were just among the hostages still held by the terrorists holed up in Marawi’s commercial district.
But sometimes she could not avoid thinking they might have been killed in the fighting between government troops and the terrorists. The uncertainty depresses her, she said.
Lumabao said she had received no information about her missing children since the start of the crisis.
Norhuda had a cell phone, but Lumabao lost contact with her as early as the first day of the evacuation of the city.
Lumabao was returning from a trip to Iligan City when the fighting in Marawi started.
The family house was in Basak Malutlut village, but the farthest Lumabao got was Bangolo village.
“I stayed overnight in the house of our friend in Bangolo. The following day, I managed to walk to our house. Along the way, I saw bodies. Inside our house, our things were scattered. They (her children) were not around,” she said.
Lumabao said she was forced to leave when a Maute gunman ordered her out.
She initially sought refuge at the capitol compound in Marawi, where she said she prayed hard for the safety of her eight children.
She later found four of them—Rakma, 19; Jamud, 17; Abdul Jamil, 15, and Alejana, 14—during a frantic search of the shelters.
“But the others, I have no news of them up now,” said Lumabao, who had since moved to the Buru-un evacuation center here.
“It hurts, not knowing where they are or what really happened to them,” she said.