Villagers flee as AFP-BIFF battle rages

WAITING GAME Members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces (BIAF) wait out the meeting between the police board of inquiry and Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) vice chair for political affairs Ghazali Jaafar at Camp Darapanan in Sultan Kudarat on Wednesday. With orders from Armed Forces Chief of Staff Gen. Gregorio Pio Catapang Jr., an all-out offensive against the MILF breakaway group Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters in Central Mindanao, the BIAF does some more waiting as it clears areas of military operation in a move arranged through and coordinated with the joint government-MILF ceasefire committee. REM ZAMORA

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—Thousands of civilians are fleeing their villages in Maguindanao, including Mamasapano town, as government forces clash with Moro rebels.

The villages are fast getting empty as the provincial government prepares to conduct psychosocial counseling for residents of Mamasapano town traumatized by the Jan. 25 fighting between government security forces and Moro rebels that left 44 police commandos, 18 Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) guerrillas and 5 civilians dead.

The military reported that six Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) rebels were killed by government troops in fighting at Matumaig village in Datu Unsay town on Friday.

Two Marines were injured in a clash with the BIFF rebels, according to Capt. Jo-Ann Petinglay, the regional military spokesperson.

Petinglay said the military managed to clear a portion of the Cotabato City-General Santos City Highway, which the BIFF occupied on Friday.

Abu Misri Mama, spokesman for the BIFF, had a different story to tell.

He said the BIFF had three fighters wounded, more than 20 Army and Marine soldiers were killed, and the military retreated.

Mama said the evacuations were working to the BIFF’s advantage, as no residents would be caught in the cross fire.

“We will strike anytime against the military, civilians living near Army camps should move away,” Mama said.

Petinglay said the military was prepared for any move by the BIFF to strike at soft targets, including laying siege to Cotabato City.

But Mama said BIFF forces were “just here in the city sitting over cups of coffee.”

The Humanitarian Emergency Action Response Team of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) said it was still verifying the number of people being displaced by the fighting.

Radjah Buayan Mayor Zamsamin Ampatuan said 250 families from several villages in his town had fled their homes.

“No fighting yet in Radjah Buayan but civilians fled after seeing armed men emerging from the marshland,” Ampatuan said.

Authorities reported that at least two Mamasapano villages had been emptied, with residents fleeing to safer areas.

At least 2,129 families fled seven villages in Shariff Saydona Mustapha town, the emergency team reported.

“There is an all-out war declaration, we expect more conflict in the future and more evacuees,”Sammy Abdul, village chair of Kalbugan in Pagalungan town, said.

Abdul said that in his village alone, majority of the people who returned after the Feb. 13 clash between MILF and BIFF forces were thinking of going back to evacuation centers because of the fighting.