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COTABATO: Armed Muslim separatists forced some 1,200 Christian
settlers from a rice-farming hamlet in the southern Philippines,
authorities said Friday.
Around 300 gunmen confiscated the farmers’
rice harvest and demanded that the residents give them food, said
local Mayor Rodolfo Garcia.
A police unit dispatched to the village on the
island of Mindanao backed off to avoid a potential confrontation
with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), he said.
The tense situation has sparked fears of renewed
fighting after Malaysia decided last week to pull its peacekeepers
from Mindanao within the year.
Garcia told reporters at least 200 families in
the village of Sangay, or more than a third of the village
population of about 3,500 Christian and Muslim farmers, fled their
homes after the MILF guerrillas were deployed there on Tuesday.
He said the rebels ordered the farmers to
leave Muslim ancestral lands.
-- AFP
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