COTABATO CITY — Moro gunmen on Tuesday fired assault rifles at a village hall in Bialong, Shariff Aguak in Maguindanao del Sur and stopped a convoy of local officials out to deliver relief supplies to villagers.
A group led by a commander from the 118th base command of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front was behind the atrocities that caused panic among innocent villagers, officials of the Maguindanao Provincial Police Office and units of the Army’s Sixth Infantry Division in Shariff Aguak told reporters on Wednesday.
The gunmen opened fire on the barangay hall in Bialong, causing villagers to run for their lives. Displaced Bialong residents said the group is hostile to their village chairman.
Shariff Aguak Mayor Akmad A. Ampatuan, Sr., who was supposed to hold an outreach mission in Bialong, stopped government soldiers and policemen accompanying him from responding to the provocation to avoid displacing more villagers. — John Felix M. Unson
