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IDPs concentrated in Mindanao Island as clashes continue

An IDP family in Cotabato City, Maguindanao province on Mindanao island in the southern Philippines flees fighting between Philippine government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. Over one million Filipinos have been displaces by fighting from Veejay Villafranca/IRIN
An IDP family in Cotabato City, Maguindanao province on Mindanao island in the southern Philippines flees fighting between Philippine government forces and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

The vast majority of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Philippines are in Mindanao Island in the southernmost part of the country.

Department of Social Work and Development (DSWD) programme development officer Rey Martija told IRIN 90 percent of IDPs come from Mindanao. In the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) alone, close to 120,000 persons were forced from their homes in 2007.

“I’ve lost count how many times we’ve had to move out because of the fighting,” Samira Usman told IRIN.

Samira Usman and her family of six, and most of the community, have abandoned their home in Kudal village, Pagalungan town, Maguindanao Province, numerous times due to clashes between government forces and the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). Maguindanao Province is on Mindanao Island.

She said the first time they escaped “was around 2000 when former President Estrada declared an all-out war against the MILF”. Some 60,000 residents in Maguindanao Province were evacuated during the offensive.

Cramped in evacuation shelters for months and with food scarce, she said, disease stalked them like vultures. “There were some who died,” she said. Her four children had to stop going to school every now and then. “I pity my children,” Usman said. “They are being deprived of their childhood, not to mention the trauma induced by the displacement.”

Territorial disputes have stymied the signing of a peace agreement between the government and the MILF. More IDPs were generated in Mindanao when the government declared a “war on terror” in 2005 against the terrorist Abu Sayyaf Group based on the southern islands of Sulu and Basilan which ae art of Mindanao. 

''I’ve lost count how many times we’ve had to move out because of the fighting.''

Frequent displacements

The experience of the frequently displaced residents of the Kudal community is a familiar one in the Philippines. For four decades now, internal conflict has wracked the nation with the government fighting communist rebels and Muslim separatists. Millions of civilians have been caught in the crossfire and displaced over the years in remote areas of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao islands.

DSWD data show that from 2001 to 2005 alone, 1.025 million people were identified as internally displaced persons (IDPs) due to conflict. Another 483 were killed and 500 wounded during the same period.

Over 156,000 new IDPs in 2007

In 2006 there were 87,893 IDPs and by 15 December 2007 156,780 according to the DSWD. The latter figure excludes those who are currently being displaced due to ongoing government offensives against the New Peoples' Army (NPA).

Some agencies feel the numbers of IDPs reported are considerably higher than official figures because many families who are forced to evacuate are never officially recorded. Balay Rehabilitation Centre, a local non-governmental organisation (NGO), estimates that over two million people were displaced from 2001 to 2005.

The IDP situation “is so fluid” that it is difficult to keep track of the numbers, according to Rico Salcedo, head of the UNHCR Philippines office. “They move out and go back,” he said. “And then there are others who have yet to return to their homes.”

Regardless of the precise numbers, Philippine Senator Aquilino Pimentel laments that the country now ranks third - behind Burma and Indonesia - in Southeast Asia in terms of IDPs. “It is a phenomenon that we have ignored for so long,” Pimentel told IRIN. He stressed the need to pass legislation to protect and institutionalise assistance to the IDPs.


Photo: Veejay Villafranca/IRIN
Children displaced by fighting between the government and the Abu Sayyaf Group on Sulu Island, southern Philippines.
Children most affected

Analisa Ugay, lobby specialist for Balay, said children are the most severely affected by internal displacement. “They comprise 40-60 percent of total IDPs,” she told IRIN. “The trauma of war may leave a lasting impact on their development.” Officially, there is no breakdown of IDPs based on age or sex.

The DWSD’s disaster fund budget for 2007 amounts to only P192 million (about US$4.2 million). Of this amount, a mere P7.27 million (about US $161,500) was allocated to IDPs. The total amount in 2006 was only P3.73 million (about $82,000). Government intervention is largely limited to the provision of relief goods and materials for the temporary shelter of IDPs.

Ugay laments that “the government seems apathetic to the plight of the IDPs.” She also believes the NPA and the MILF should also take the blame: “They should share the responsibility because these displaced civilians are located in their controlled territory.”

Community-based solutions

Some agencies are working on community-based solutions for peace. Serge Villena, programme associate for the UN Development Programme (UNDP)-Philippines’s crisis prevention and protection recovery unit, said “empowering the IDPs by capacitating them as active players in the maintenance of peace” may mitigate the plight of IDPs. Villena said a second phase of a UNDP project, Stride-Mindanao, (Stride standing for Strengthening Response to Internal Displacement) is being developed that “seeks to capacitate community leaders to hold dialogue between the warring parties” to help prevent conflict.

There are small successes. Ugay of Balay told IRIN community leaders in some areas in ARMM have been able to prevent clashes “because they took it upon themselves to preserve peace in their area.” Ugays says: “They declared their areas zones of peace and they opened communication lines between the warring parties.”

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This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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