Over 40 Teduray families displaced by Dawlah Islamiyah-MILF clash in MagSur
Mindanao Armed Conflict • 16:45 PM Tue Sep 12, 2023
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By:
John Felix Unson
Teduray families were displaced by the hostilities in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao del Sur. (From Bangsamoro Parliament Member Froilyn Mendoza)
COTABATO CITY - Authorities are bracing for a possible retaliation by the Dawlah Islamiya terror group that lost two men in a clash with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in Maguindanao del Sur on Monday.
The 45-minute gunfight in Barangay Mother Tuayan in Datu Hoffer, Maguindanao del Sur erupted when Dawlah Islamiya terrorists intruded into an area where MILF members reside to collect money and food from farmers.
Timuay Anton Dian, Indigenous People’s Mandatory Representative to the municipal council of Datu Hoffer, and Bangsamoro Parliament Member Froilyn Mendoza told reporters Tuesday around 40 Teduray families in houses around the scene of the encounter have relocated to safe areas.
“We are calling on government relief agencies to extend to them relief support,” Mendoza, who is an ethnic Teduray, said.
Col. Roel R. Sermese, director of the Maguindanao del Sur provincial police, and Army Brig. Gen. Oriel L. Pangcog of the 601st Infantry Brigade confirmed the incident that resulted in the death of two Dawlah Islamiya members and assured the public of their interventions to prevent a repeat of the incident.
Officials of the municipal peace and order councils in Datu Hoffer and nearby Datu Unsay and Shariff Aguak towns told reporters Tuesday the Dawlah Islamiya members killed in the clash, cousins Muntas Samsudin Ansao and Salik Abdullah Mantato, died on the spot from multiple gunshot wounds.
The sources, among them Moro datus, had also reported to the Army’s 6th Infantry Division in Camp Siongco in Datu Odin Sinsuat, Maguindanao del Norte that three other Dawlah Islamiya members, initially identified only as Saidamen, Mosib, and Sanggutin, were wounded in the gunfight that caused panic among villagers.
The Dawlah Islamiya terrorists involved in the clash, led by Adbdulnasser Sangid Guinaid and a certain Odic, immediately scampered away when they sensed that more followers of the MILF leader in the area, Sagah Dingan Malandag, were closing in.
Guinaid and his companions carried their three wounded companions away as they fled towards the hinterland border of Datu Hoffer and Datu Saudi Ampatuan, Maguindanao del Sur.