Kato’s men attack shelter, kill evacuee, wound another

RESIDENTS of a remote village in Ampatuan town in Maguindanao flee clashes between soldiers and followers of renegade Moro rebel leader Ameril Umra Kato that have displaced thousands of people and killed civilians. JEOFFREY MAITEM/INQUIRER MINDANAO

COTABATO CITY—Followers of renegade Moro rebel leader Ameril Umra Kato opened fire at civilians who had fled fighting between the Moro renegades and government soldiers, killing one evacuee.

Dr. Tahir Sulaik, Maguindanao health chief, said Kato’s followers launched the attack on an evacuation center in Shariff Aguak town in Maguindanao yesterday.

Sulaik said the attack came as health workers were on a medical mission in the evacuation center. Two men on a motorcycle came and opened fire without provocation.

“This is deplorable,” said Sulaik.

Killed was Manan Beda Santo, 35, village councilman of Kakal, Ampatuan, Maguindanao.

Kato’s followers continued to target civilians in their siege of communities in Maguindanao.

They set off a bomb planted on the roadside between two Maguindanao towns just as a military convoy followed by civilian vehicles passed by, according to Lt. Col. Prudencio Asto, spokesperson of the Army’s 6th Division.

The explosion killed a man identified only as Abdullah, said Asto. Asto said Abdullah is the third civilian killed by members of Kato’s Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters.

The latest civilian casualty brought to three the number of noncombatants killed by followers of Kato, a wanted criminal who broke off from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) over disagreements with other MILF leaders on peace talks with government.

The government has put up a P5-million bounty for the capture of Kato dead or alive after the renegade Moro rebel led a siege of civilian communities in reaction to a Supreme Court ruling that declared as unconstitutional an agreement between government and MILF that would have expanded territory under autonomous Moro rule.

“The people we are fighting  might not be in their right senses anymore,” said Asto.

According to Asto, the bomb was set off about 6 a.m. at a portion of the Maguindanao-General Santos Highway between Datu Unsay and Shariff Aguak towns in Maguindanao just as a military convoy passed by followed by several civilian vehicles that just happened to be using the same road.

Two civilians were wounded in the explosion. Jeoffrey Maitem and Edwin Fernandez, Inquirer Mindanao