39 die in evacuation centers

LANAO DEL SUR, Philippines – Health officials yesterday said 39 evacuees from Marawi City have died from various illnesses while in squalid evacuation centers over the past three weeks.

Three of the fatalities were children who died of dehydration caused by diarrhea.

Kadil Sinolinding Jr., regional health secretary of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), said the deaths of 19 of the victims have been properly documented, while the rest were immediately buried by relatives in keeping with Islamic tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours.

Two evacuees died from lingering cardiovascular ailments.

Sinolinding said ARMM health workers are now helping maintain cleanliness in the evacuation sites, many of them located in Iligan City.

“Unsanitary disposal of human waste is one of the health hazards in evacuation sites,” Sinolinding said.

Parents of sick children have complained of difficulty in bringing their children to health centers and private clinics due to the extremely rigid screening of motorists and passengers of public conveyances by soldiers and policemen guarding checkpoints along the Marawi-Iligan highway and the Secretary Narciso Ramos highway that links Marawi City to towns in the second district of Lanao del Sur.

“Among the interventions being initiated is feeding of evacuees, particularly children, with high-energy foods,” Sinolinding said.

He said the ARMM government is thankful to the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations Children’s Fund for helping attend to the needs of children in more than 20 evacuation sites.

Statistics obtained from the crisis management committee of the provincial government of Lanao del Sur and ARMM’s Humanitarian Emergency Assistance and Response Team indicated that there are now 200,234 internally displaced people from Marawi City.

More than 40,000 of the evacuees have sought refuge in the homes of relatives while the rest are in evacuation centers.