Grenade blast rocks evacuation site in Pikit, North Cotabato
Local News • 18:00 PM Sun Oct 23, 2022
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By:
John M. Unson
COTABATO CITY - A grenade blast ripped through a makeshift evacuation site in the troubled Pikit town in North Cotabato Saturday night, scaring evacuees from conflict-stricken villages.
Pikit has been hitting the news lately owing to the unending spate of gun attacks in its barangays that have resulted in the death of no fewer than 30 persons in only about 24 months.
Pikit Mayor Sumulong Sultan on Sunday visited the blast site, DXMS Radyo Bida reported.
The 40 millimeter grenade projectile that landed and went off in the premises of an evacuation site in Barangay Ladtingan in Pikit was fired from a distance using either a vintage single-shot shoulder-fire M79, or an M203 rifle fitted with a launcher.
The explosion caused panic among evacuees, some of them preschool children and elderly men and women, driven away from their homes in Barangay Macabual in Pikit by encounters last week between two heavily armed groups.
Personnel of the Pikit Municipal Police Station and Officials of the Army’s 90th Infantry Battalion said efforts to determine who was behind Saturday night’s bombing in Barangay Ladtingan are underway.