2 dead in 2 ambush incidents in neighboring BARMM towns

COTABATO CITY—  Two Moro men were killed, and another was wounded in separate ambush incidents in two adjoining towns in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area of Cotabato province on Sunday, March 15.

Local executives and senior officials of the Police Regional Office–Bangsamoro Autonomous Region told reporters on Monday, March 16, that the first of the two incidents left a motorcycle rider, Toks Subhan, dead.

He and his brother, Abdulhalak, were riding a motorcycle together when they were attacked by men armed with rifles and pistols at Sitio Kadingilan in Barangay Lagunde, Tugunan.

Subhan's younger brother, who sustained serious bullet wounds in different parts of his body, was immediately rushed to a hospital by emergency responders for treatment.

PRO-BAR officials said their attackers had fled before responding barangay officials and policemen could reach the scene.

PRO-BAR's spokesperson, Police Capt. Steffi Salanguit, said Hashim was attacked by gunmen along a farm-to-market road in Sitio Migkampong in Barangay Batulawan. 

Barangay officials and police investigators from the Malidegao Municipal Police Station found empty shells of .45 caliber pistol and 5.56 M16 assault rifles close to where villagers found Hashim sprawled on the ground, lifeless.

Hashim's assailants escaped toward a marshland in Malidegao, now subject of a joint manhunt by personnel of the municipal police and soldiers from a unit of the Army's 602nd Infantry Brigade.

The neighboring Tugunan and Malidegao are two of the eight newly-created municipalities in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area, under the regional government of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, but are inside Cotabato province in Administrative Region 12.