Manila: Rescuers on Wednesday recovered 17 decomposing bodies of civilians believed to have been killed by militants who have been holed up for more than a month in Marawi City, a besieged community in the southern Philippines, the military said.
The retrieval brought to 44 the number of civilians allegedly killed by the militants during the five-week conflict in Marawi City, 800 km south of Manila, said Brigadier General Restituto Padilla, a military spokesman.
Padilla said the number of civilians killed by the militants allied with the IS could still increase as reports of other executions are validated. “In the earlier days of the fighting, there was sufficient proof to believe that there were executions conducted from inside Marawi regarding a number of Christians,” he said. “They were killed by being shot at the back... while they were kneeling.”
The 17 bodies were recovered in Gadungan, a district of Marawi City that was initially occupied by the militants. They have been turned over to police for tests to establish their identities and the circumstances of their death, the military said.
“The recovered cadavers are believed to be those civilians who were helplessly murdered by the terrorists,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jo-Ar Herrera, a spokesman said. Troops have killed 299 militants in the fighting, which has also left 71 soldiers and police officers dead.
The crisis in Marawi City has forced more than 300,000 people to flee their homes.
Twenty-seven people have also died in hospitals due to complications from various illnesses after they were displaced. The hostilities began on May 23 when hundreds of militants attacked Marawi City after government forces attempted to arrest a local leader of the IS.
Authorities said the militants had planned the attack months ahead, and had intended to set up an IS caliphate in the southern region of Mindanao. President Rodrigo Duterte, who declared martial law in Mindanao to boost the fight against the militants, has apologised for the destruction and vowed to rehabilitate Marawi City, considered the spiritual centre for the Muslim minority in the Philippines.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Wednesday likened the IS to Germany’s Adolf Hitler, who killed millions of Jews “for nothing.”
“It’s bereft of ideology,” Duterte told reporters after receiving thousands of rifles and ammunition donated by China.
“What they know is just to kill and destroy...It’s a mass insanity. Every generation has that kind of [phenomenon].During our parents’ time, Hitler was a madman, and yet he was able to contaminate a lot of people with his ideas about killing Jews,” he said.
“Killing by the millions for nothing. That’s just like IS,” he said. President Duterte promised to destroy the militants in Marawi and said the Philippines was now dealing with “a very dangerous situation” due to young Muslims inspired by the “mass insanity” of IS.
“They enjoy decapitating people in front of cameras. They have to be dealt with, with the same ferocity but not the brutality,” he said.
The information about the beheadings came via a text message to reporters from Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Garcia of the Western Mindanao Command.
Garcia did not respond to repeated requests for details. A civilian rescue worker, Abdul Azis Lomondot, said body parts were found, but with “no proof of beheading”.
The battle entered its 36th day on Wednesday, with intense gunfights and bombing in the heart of the town and black-clad fighters seen from afar running between buildings as explosions rang out.— Agencies
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