2 Moro leaders killed in Maguindanao del Norte attacks

COTABATO CITY, Philippines — Two traditional Moro leaders, both involved in community peacebuilding activities in their hometown, Datu Odin Sinsuat, in Maguindanao del Norte province, were killed in separate gun attacks within just 24 hours.

Datu Manalao Mangelen Nur Sr., former chairman of Barangay Dados in Datu Odin Sinsuat, died instantly from multiple bullet wounds sustained in an ambush in a secluded area in Esperanza town in Sultan Kudarat on Sunday, October 11.

Mangelen was riding a Nissan pick-up truck, along with a driver, when they were attacked by gunmen along a stretch of a highway in an interior area in Esperanza, near the predominantly Moro village where he had settled after serving as chairman of Barangay Dados for three consecutive terms, preceded by his longtime involvement in community peacebuilding activities as one of the respected Moro datus in the area.

His assailants immediately escaped using getaway motorcycles, according to officials of the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Police Office.

Esperanza, a component-town of Region 12, is about 70 kilometers south of Datu Odin Sinsuat, one of the 12 towns in Maguindanao del Norte in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao

Relatives of Nur told reporters on Monday that they are certain that his killers are residents of  Datu Odin Sinsuat. They refused to elaborate, however.

The incident that left Nur dead was followed by a similar atrocity on Monday in Poblacion Dalican in Datu Odin Sinsuat that also resulted in the immediate death of Datu Amil Beno, a member of the barangay council in Barangay Bungued, an interior area in the municipality.

Beno, also a scion of a noble Maguindanaon clan, was active in supporting programs promoting religious and cultural solidarity among the Muslim, Christian and indigenous non-Moro communities in Datu Odin Sinsuat.

Officials of the Datu Odin Sinsuat Municipal Police Station and local executives separately told reporters at noon Monday that Beno was riding his tricycle, called "payong-payong" in most southern vernaculars, when he was attacked by pistol-wielding men at a stretch of the Bongued-Dalican farm-to-market road in the Poblacion Dalican area.

His assailants also rode motorcycles as they escaped, leaving him sprawled on the concrete road, lifeless.

Police investigators and officials of intelligence units under the Army's 6th Infantry Division are cooperating in identifying the perpetrators of the two separate atrocities for prosecution.