/ AFP / Noel Celis
An eight-hour ceasefire in Marawi came to an abrupt end Sunday afternoon as the government continued its offensive against Islamist militants occupying parts of the city.
Assaults backed by air and artillery bombardment had stopped at 6am but gunfire broke out as soon as the truce ended around 2pm, AFP reporters in Marawi said.
Regional military commander Lieutenant General Carlito Galvez said the truce also allowed five Muslim religious leaders to enter ground zero and negotiate with the militants to release civilian hostages, especially children, women and the elderly.
“It’s already been more than 30 days (of fighting) and we received reports that some of them have nothing to eat,” Galvez said.
The negotiators later Sunday emerged from the conflict zone with five civilians, incuding a mother and her 16-month-old daughter.
The woman said she had given birth to another child just two weeks ago in the middle of the fighting but her infant boy died due to lack of food, according to police who interviewed her.
A video released by the military showed the rescued residents looking terrified, pale and haggard.
Military chief General Eduardo Año ordered his forces to observe a “humanitarian pause” during Eid al-Fitr in Marawi.
Eid al-Fitr ends the fasting month of Ramadan for Muslims.
“We declare a lull in our current operations in the city on that day as a manifestation of our high respect to the Islamic faith,” Año said in a statement.
Hundreds of militants, flying the flag of the Islamic State group and backed by foreign fighters, seized swathes of Marawi in the southern region of Mindanao last month, sparking street battles.
Troops have launched a relentless air and ground offensive and are closing in on them.
“This is the saddest Eid celeberation in recent memory,” Zia Alonto Adiong, a legislator for an autonomous Muslim region that covers Marawi, said in a Facebook post.
Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said Sunday a Philippine Navy ship was sent to Cotabato south of Marawi to bring supplies for soldiers involved in the fighting and serve as a floating hospital for the wounded.
Civilians trapped
Military spokesman Brigadier General Restituto Padilla said around 500 civilians remained trapped in areas where the fighting is concentrated.
Nearly 300 militants and 67 troops have been killed in the fighting, according to official figures.
Military officials have said troops are having difficulty because the militants are using civilians as human shields.
In May Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across all of Mindanao to quell a rebellion aimed at establishing an Islamic State caliphate in the area.
Foreign fighters, including those from Chechnya, Indonesia and Malaysia, are among those killed in the Marawi conflict.
A senior military commander said on Saturday that they were verifying reports Isnilon Hapilon, a leader of the Marawi attack and one of America’s most wanted terrorists, has slipped out of the city.
Regional military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jo-ar Herrera said Sunday the military was still checking the report.
“He (Hapilon) is not being heard or monitored commanding troops on the ground,” Herrera said in Marawi.
Australia has sent two high-tech surveillance planes to help Filipino troops in Marawi, joining the United States in providing military assistance. Agence France Presse