| |
| |
 |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
PIKIT, Philippines: Thirteen-year-old Ruben Pano surveys the mound of grey ash that was once his family home, torched by Muslim rebels who left a trail of death and despair as they fled government troops.
As Pano and his cousin Roy rummaged Wednesday through the debris of their remote farming village of Takepan, gunfire could still be heard in the distance.
Nearby, troops armed with assault rifles and bazookas had taken up positions along a grassy footpath connecting the poor farming hamlet to the nearest highway three kilometres away.
"When the shooting started we just ran," Pano said, as he recovered the charred remains of his bicycle, which he hoped to repair.
He said his father Berting and mother Lilia were at home when the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels entered the area at the weekend.
The ensuing frenzied gun battles between rebels and troops forced 160,000 people to flee their homes in North Cotabato province on Mindanao island.
For a few days Pano and his family stayed in a packed and squalid evacuation centre where food was running low and sanitation a major problem.
Pano said he came back after the fighting died down only to find his village deserted and in ruins. Many of the houses had been burnt while those that were left were looted.
"I want the MILF to stop shooting at civilians," said Pano as he salvaged blackened cups and pans and other belongings from the rubble.
His cousin Roy grabbed the pet dove from a coop that escaped the fire.
While Pano and his parents survived, his grandparents Lucio, 77, Isidra, 74 and uncle Dulcesimo, 43, suffered a brutal fate. Fleeing rebels shot the elderly man while his wife died from cardiac arrest after being hit on the head.
Dulcesimo was taken hostage and used as a human shield, but was later killed by the MILF.
Like many villages affected by the fighting this week, Takepan is now deserted except for a few chickens and the odd pig.
The doors and windows of some of the houses remained ajar, while a bag of clothes was hanging by the doorjamb of one -- indications that residents had little notice to flee before the first volley of gunfire and mortar bombs landed on the village.
The silence in the area Wednesday was eerie, punctuated only by the flowing stream and the gentle swaying of the treetops. Trees were pockmarked by bullets and boot prints marked the ground.
The rebels took over the village at the weekend after rejecting a government ultimatum to leave the area.
Renegade MILF commander Umbra Kato ordered the attacks last week after the Supreme Court ordered the government to suspend plans to establish an extended Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines.
The MILF leadership has distanced itself from Kato, whose unit refused to follow orders from the overall rebel leadership to withdraw.
What followed was a full scale assault by the military using artillery, ground troops and air support in several fronts covering five towns and dozens of villages.
Heavy artillery and gunfire from government troops drove the rebels to retreat into nearby forested hills, from where they occasionally take potshots at advancing soldiers clearing the area.
The rebels also left behind booby traps and planted land mines along areas used by armoured personnel carriers.
"It depends on the rebel resistance how fast we can proceed with the rehabilitation phase," regional police commander Chief Superintendent Lizardo Serapio told reporters.
"We have to clear the area and declare it safe first," he said.
"A lot of the farm animals were stolen, plants and farms destroyed."
- AFP/yb
|
