Muslim evacuees fear BIFF atrocities, reluctant to return home

MAGUINDANAO, Philippines - Some 2,000 Muslim evacuees displaced by last week's rampage of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) are reluctant to return to their homes due to mounting threats of renewed harassments from the bandit group.

BIFF bandits have still been sporadically attacking Army detachments in Central Mindanao, in what local executives said were attempts “to get even” for their heavy losses in engagements with government forces last week at the border of Maguindanao’s adjoining Datu Piang and Saidona towns, and in Pikit and Midsayap towns in North Cotabato province.

“We are safer here in the evacuation centers. Here, we can observe Ramadan peacefully, pray five times a day without fear of getting caught in any crossfire,” a mother of three, Saripa Kamid, 29, said in the Maguindanaon dialect.

Kamid and members of her family are among the evacuees now confined in squalid makeshift relief sites scattered at the town proper of Datu Piang.

The evacuees are aware that since the BIFF does not recognize the July 1997 Agreement on General Cessation of Hostilities between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, it can carry out attacks at will.

The bandit group is led by clerics, some of them graduate of secular schools in the Middle East and Pakistan, who are known for their extreme interpretation of the Qur’an and their ruthless enforcement of a Taliban-style justice system in areas where they operate.

Social workers from the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, led by regional Vice Gov. Haroun Al-Rashid Lucman, found out during the distribution of relief goods on Thursday to evacuees in Datu Piang that the beleaguered villagers are afraid of returning to their homes for fear of their lives.

A 34-year-old farmer, who asked to be identified only as Mohaimen, said he and his relatives are certain that BIFF bandits will continue the harassments in retaliation for the casualties their group incurred during last week's clashes.

Lucman, who is also the ARMM’s concurrent social welfare secretary, said he is optimistic normalcy will start setting in while Muslims in the province are observing the Ramadan, which started July 10.

“We need peace during this season. We have to let our people fast and pray during the Ramadan in an atmosphere of tranquility, amity and fraternalism,” Lucman told reporters.

Muslims fast from dawn to dusk during the Ramadan, which lasts for one lunar cycle or about 28 to 29 days, is a religious obligation and a means of strengthening self-restraint to achieve spiritual perfection.

Security in the province remains tight to stave off any maneuver by the BIFF that can dislocate more innocent Moro villagers, according Major Gen. Romeo Gapuz, commander of the Army’s 6th Infantry Division.

Local executives in Maguindanao said the BIFF is known for its propensity to use civilians as “human shields” to forestall counter-attacks by the military and police.