ZAMBOANGA, Philippines: Heavy rains flooded evacuation centres in the southern Philippines, adding more misery for thousands of people displaced by a bloody Muslim rebel siege, officials said yesterday.
Almost a month after followers of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) leader Nur Misuari besieged Zamboanga, over 116,000 people — around one tenth of the port city’s population — are still sheltering in evacuation centres, where there is a shortage of toilets and medicine.
But government tents have been unable to withstand the heavy rain which has been falling since Friday, causing knee-deep floods said Adriano Fuego, the area’s civil defence chief.
“The waters are as high as knee deep in some places. It is mostly muddy (there) and the people are getting soaked,” Fuego said.
Of the 71,000 people sheltering at the main evacuation centre in the city’s sports stadium, 46,000 have had to be moved from their tents to higher ground, while the rest sheltered in the elevated stands, Fuego said.
The government has begun constructing raised plywood shelters with tin roofs to replace the tents with fears that thousands will not be able to return home for months, he added.
“No evacuation centres have closed because they still cannot return to their neighbourhoods since the clearing operations are still going on,” he said, referring to police and military searches in the siege area for unexploded ordnance, booby traps, dead MNLF fighters and possible rebel stragglers.
The government declared the rebel action crushed on September 28 with the release of the last of 195 hostages, but the areas where the fighting took place are still largely off-limits to civilians until they are cleared. — AFP