Grenade blast kills 1, hurt 5 in Maguindanao Sur ahead of baptism celebration
Peace and Order • 22:15 PM Fri Dec 8, 2023
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By:
Edwin O. Fernandez
South Upi PNP personnel conduct checkpoint operation following grenade blast in Barangay Pilar. (DXMS photo)
PARANG, Maguindanao Norte – A farmer was killed while five others were injured when unidentified men tossed a fragmentation grenade inside a makeshift kitchen where the victims were preparing food, police said.
Brig. Gen. Allan Nobleza, police director for the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) based here, has condemned the attack in Sitio Mafran, Barangay Pilar, South Upi, Maguindanao del Sur.
Citing report from South Upi municipal police station, Nobleza identified the fatality as Nestor Amborgo Jr, a farmer who was killed on the spot due to shrapnel injuries.
Five others were injured and are now undergoing medication at a hospital in nearby Upi town and in Cotabato City.
They are Jem Amborgo, 30, Joem Sentina, 33, Alvin Caurin, 37, Jemboy Denuman, 45 and Jimrod Mutha, 43, all residents of Barangay Pilar.
“It was supposedly in preparation for a happy celebration of christening, now we are mourning,” Edita Suenan, a resident of Barangay Pilar, said in the vernacular during a radio interview.
Police said the victims were preparing food for Saturday’s baptism of a relative when a fragmentation grenade was lobbed by still unidentified men at about 12:30 a.m. Friday.
Motive of the attack remained unknown.
Nobleza could not say whether or not the attack was the handiwork of Dawlah Islamiyah, a local terror group, that has been the subject of massive military and police manhunt operation following the Marawi bombing.