MANILA, Philippines — Tight security and restrictions at military checkpoints has been keeping badly needed relief goods from reaching some 1,800 families from Marawi City who have fled to an adjacent town from the fighting between government forces and gunmen of the Maute group, the chairman of an activist Moro organization said Friday.
Jerome Succor Aba quoted Mayor Macmod Muti of Saguiaran, which abuts the northern edge of Marawi, as saying they have yet to receive any of the relief goods or other assistance that the Department of Social Welfare and Development has made available in Iligan City even as more people fleeing the fighting continue arriving in the town, many of them on foot.
Thursday, news reports said public utility vehicles mustered to take evacuees out of Marawi were not allowed to enter the besieged city as fighting continued to rage.
Friday morning, Aba, chairman of Suara Bangsamoro, said an elderly evacuee fleeing on foot to Saguiaran died of heatstroke.
Aba, said most of the evacuees have been staying at the town hall compound since fighting broke out on May 23 and prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to place the whole of Mindanao under martial law.
“The evacuees are suffering hunger despite (the) availability of food supplies from the DSWD” because of the “difficulties in delivering the relief goods because of the tight and strict military checkpoints,” Aba, who was in Saguiaran and Marawi, said.
Aba said some of the elderly and young evacuees in Saguiaran were coming down with illnesses but there are no doctors available. The situation, he added, is the same at the Lanao del Sur provincial capitol in Marawi City.
“When Jalil Hassan, 30, of Barangay Marinaut in Marawi was wounded by shrapnel from a military helicopter air strike around 10 a.m. (Friday), there was no doctor to treat him,” Aba said.
Meanwhile, Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo announced on her Twitter account that those who wanted to help with relief operations could contact the ARMM Humanitarian Emergency Action and Response Team (ARMM HEART) at 0917-523-8329.
Donors could provide the following:
– water
– food packs
– “raw materials” for a community kitchen
– soap
– shampoo
– toothpaste
– toothbrush
– sanitary napkins
In-kind donations can be dropped off at the ARMM HEART operation center in the former NEDA building, ORG Compound, Cotabato City.
She added that the following evacuation centers had already received help, and assured the public that other affected communities would soon get assistance.
Naglalabas ng tulong ang DSWD sa mga evacuation center na ito.Sa mga lugar na wala pang tulong, parating na ito w assistance ng DSWD ARMM. pic.twitter.com/xArTSwUm8R
— Sec. Judy Taguiwalo (@sec_judy) May 26, 2017
Taguiwalo also asked that those with information regarding people who were still stranded to text their names, exact location, and mobile number to any of these hotlines.
Please help circulate. Thank you. pic.twitter.com/sdKwdsvCbd
— Sec. Judy Taguiwalo (@sec_judy) May 26, 2017
For her part, Vice President Leni Robredo said in a media interview in Camarines Sur on Friday that her office had also started its own relief drive on Thursday, to supplement the DSWD’s efforts.
The command center was in Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro. Food was an urgent need, she said.
