The occupation of a school by Islamic terrorists in Cotabato is now over, with each of the 31 hostages the militants took accounted for and unharmed, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said on Wednesday night.
“It’s all resolved, all the hostages have been accounted for, no one was hurt,” military spokesperson Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told AFP by phone.
The unrest occurred in Pigcawayan, a farming town about 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Marawi city where the Maute group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) and the Abu Sayyaf have been battling government troops for a month.
Padilla said the attackers at Pigcawayan belonged to the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), one of four groups in the southern region of Mindanao that have pledged allegiance to the international terrorist group.
About 200 gunmen were involved in the initial assault, according to Pigcawayan mayor Eliseo Garsesa.
The gunmen first attacked a military outpost at dawn, with some then taking over the school, a small building in the rural area.
The military said that the gunmen planted improvised bombs around the school, which the soldiers immediately surrounded.
Padilla and a local military spokesman said the militants were later able to use the cover of darkness to escape, while leaving their 31 hostages unharmed.
They said 12 children were among the hostages.
“Apparently (the BIFF) wanted to get even after recent setbacks,” Padilla told AFP, emphasizing that the Marawi conflict was not related to the Pigcawayan assault.
Hardline groups
Muslim rebels have been fighting for more than four decades for an independent or autonomous region in the southern part of the country, with the conflict claiming more than 120,000 lives.
The major rebel organizations have signed, or are pursuing, peace deals with the government, but small hardline groups such as the BIFF have vowed to continue fighting.
President Rodrigo Duterte declared martial law across Mindanao, home to 20 million people, on May 23 immediately after the fighters flying the IS flag rampaged through Marawi.
The military has said foreign fighters, including those from Chechnya, Indonesia and Malaysia, have also joined the Marawi conflict.
IS has ambitions of setting up a caliphate in Southeast Asia — home to largely Muslim nations like Indonesia and Malaysia — as the group loses territory in Iraq and Syria.
The BIFF was blamed for attacking communities in Mindanao in 2008, triggering a conflict that claimed about 400 lives and forced 600,000 people to flee their homes. Agence France Presse
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