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17 May 2009 Thousands of Internally Displaced
Persons (IDPs) expressed gratitude to the
International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) for the
food assistance distributed to them yesterday at Datu
Piang, Maguindanao.
The IDPs came from several municipalities of
Maguindanao which had been severely affected by the
ongoing military operations of the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) against the forces of the Moro
Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) since August last
year.
Based on existing reports, out of the more than
600,000 individuals displaced by the armed conflict,
more than 300,000 were from Maguindanao.
Accordingly, the past two weeks, AFP imposed food
blockade in embattled Maguindanao towns that hampered
distribution of food assistance even by ICRC and
United Nations World Food Program, a situation that
irked the civilians and even accused ICRC and UNWFP as
tolerating the food blockade of the AFP.
Beginning April 16, 2009, the AFP had scaled up its
indiscriminate operations in the municipalities of
Shariff Aguak, Mamasapano, Rajah Buayan Datu Piang,
Datu Saudi, Datu Unsay, Guindulungan, Talayan, Talitay,
Datu Anggal, all of Maguindanao. The number of IDPs
swelled since then.
For its part, MILF had appealed to the civilians not
to assail the ICRC on the basis of their unfounded
accusations.
The MILF through its instrumentalities conveyed that
the ICRC could not just forced their way if either
party, the AFP or MILF, had not gave security
clearance for the distribution of food assistance. In
all cases, it was the AFP which had not given the
security clearance for one reason or another.
ICRC had been staunch in delivering its mandate and
services for the conflict affected communities and
individuals not only during this resumption of
hostilities between the government and MILF following
the non-signing of the initialed GRP – MILF Memorandum
of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD) due to the
reneged on obligation made by the government.
However, staring early evening yesterday until early
morning today, the AFP bombarded again several
villages in Datu Piang, Datu Saudi, Talitay and Datu
Anggal with artillery bombs.
Lamentably, artillery bombardment is what the
government can best feed the IDPs which had been
heavily relying on the humanitarian, international and
local groups for their food subsistence.
EsinIslam.Com
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