Cop wounded in crossfire between feuding Moro partisans

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Some 700 Moro villagers evacuated to safe areas after two rival partisan groups clashed in a politically troubled barangay in Nabalawag town in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area in Cotabato province on Wednesday morning, September 16.

Local officials and traditional Moro datus told reporters at noon Wednesday that the two groups traded shots in Sitio Bentad in Barangay Olandang in Nabalawag using assault rifles and had supported rival candidates during the Bangsamoro parliamentary elections on Monday.

Captain Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson for the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters that a policeman in a team dispatched to investigate the incident was wounded in the ensuing crossfire.

Patrolman Alfadz Umal of PRO-BAR’s Regional Mobile Force Battalion 14 sustained a bullet wound in his right leg. He was immediately brought by his companions to a hospital for treatment.

The barangays covered by the newly established Nabalawag municipality in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area originally belonged to Midsayap town in Cotabato, a component province of Administrative Region 12.

Local executives in Midsayap and officials of the Cotabato Provincial Police Office told reporters the hostilities in Sitio Bentad in Barangay Olandang forced no fewer than 700 Moro villagers to evacuate to faraway barangays, fearing an escalation of the election-related hostilities.