2 soldiers, student hurt in NorCot roadside bombing

MIDSAYAP, North Cotabato --- Two soldiers and a high school student were badly hurt in a roadside bombing Wednesday in Barangay Olandang here.The victims, Private 1stClass Jestoni Bauzon and Sgt. Edwin Soria, both of the 62ndReconnaissance Company of the Army’s 6thInfantry Division, and student Miriam Akis, sustained shrapnel wounds in different parts of their bodies.Investigators said Bauzon and Soria were riding an Army vehicle together with companions when suspected members of the outlawed Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters set off an improvised explosive device while they were passing through a narrow road few meters away from the campus of the Dabpil Sampulna High School in Barangay Olandang in Midsayap.The IED was packed with nails and fragments of cast iron with jagged edges. Gunmen positioned nearby shot with assault rifles the vehicle carrying the soldiers after the explosion, provoking a brief encounter.The companions of Bauzon and Soria managed to return fire, preventing the bandits from closing in, even forcing them to retreat to a marshland west of Midsayap.Supt. Tom Tuzon, chief of the Midsayap police, said the roadside bomb used in the attack was fashioned from a live 105 Howitzer cannon projectile rigged with an improvised blasting mechanism that can be detonated from a distance.Tuzon said the three blast victims were immediately rushed to a hospital in the municipal center of Midsayap for medication.