By TESSA JAMANDRE
AS Muslims all over the world end their monthlong prayer and fasting on Monday, their brothers who have been displaced by the fighting in Mindanao continue to sacrifice in cramped evacuation centers. They are celebrating their second Eid’l Fitr in the camps after the wish they made at the start of Ramadan to mark this annual rite in their homes went unfulfilled.
The government and the Muslim secessionist group Moro Islamic Liberation Front vow to restart the stalled peace talks, but it remains unclear when normalcy will be restored to the lives of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maguindanao. For now they will have to keep counting their days in temporary shelters and live on food aid.
Since fighting broke out in August last year, government has been serving about 700,000 evacuees in 567 evacuation centers in Mindanao. The Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center said this is the world’s largest displacement last year and that the Philippines was the most neglected displacement situation in 2008.
VERA Files recently visited Datu Piang town in Maguindanao, which has practically become a big refugee site with 5,513 families, and documented the plight of the evacuees through this video.
