Evacuees trickle back to Marawi

LONG ROAD HOME Residents of Marawi, with the few belongings they managed to carry when they fled the fighting in their city, return home to start a new life. PHOTO FROM LANAO DEL SUR LGU FACEBOOK PAGE

MARAWI CITY — A section of this city, rendered a virtual ghost town at the height of the five-month fighting between government troops and terrorists, perked up with life on Monday as more than 1,000 families arrived after almost six months at an evacuation site in Iligan City.

More than 7,000 people (1,167 families) finally returned to their homes in the villages of Bacolod Chico, Toros, Lumbac A Toros and Tuca after fleeing the fighting between government troops and Islamic State (IS)-inspired terrorists who laid siege to the city on May 23.

Located along the coastline of Lake Lanao, the four villages, known among residents as Polo, are where armed men, believed to be from Butig town in Lanao del Sur province, arrived onboard motorboats two weeks before the war broke out.

Col. Romeo Brawner Jr., deputy commander of the military’s Task Group Ranao, said residents were supposed to return on Saturday, but some “sightings” in the area prompted the military to reschedule their homecoming.

“There were certain reasons, security reasons, that we cannot say in public. That’s why we recommended to the Task Force Bangon Marawi to delay their return,” Brawner said.

The war started when the military raided a house where Isnilon Hapilon, an Abu Sayyaf leader and the so-called IS “emir” in Asia, was staying. Hapilon’s group fought back, triggering the fighting that dragged on for almost five months and displaced thousands of families from the capital Marawi and surrounding towns of Lanao del Sur.

Johaila Ismael, chair of Barangay Bacolod Chico, said 100 percent of her constituents had returned home.

The houses of at least two families, however, had been razed during the war. They are now living with relatives, but the city government is helping them in their needs, local officials said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has put up a facility to provide potable water for returning residents as the local water district has yet to restore supply in many parts of the city.

Ismael said personnel of the Lanao del Sur Electric Cooperative (Lasureco) were speeding up work to restore power connections for free.

“But our problem is that there’s no free electric meters,” she said. “Where will residents get the money to pay for the meters?”

Ismael said she was confident that the returning residents would be safe, considering that policemen had been sent to their community to secure them.

The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will give returning families a sack of rice, food packs and P5,000 each, as promised by President Duterte. Some received P1,000 when they were in the evacuation centers. The remaining P4,000 will be released upon their return to their homes, DSWD officials said.

Sainollah Baute, a public schoolteacher, said while he was happy that his family was able to return to Baranay Tuca, he was devastated to see all their things in complete mess, their important belongings gone.

But Baute said they were much better off than those whose houses in the main battle area were destroyed.

“We can’t do anything about it. We have to move on,” he said. “It will take long before things normalize, but what is important is that we are now in our own house.” —With a report from Richel V. Umel