MANILA – Government forces on a twin mission to flush out Maute Group terrorists from Marawi and saving residents still trapped in the besieged city stumbled Saturday on a grim find: the bodies of eight civilians, all women and including a child.
The dead, found just 300 meters outside the Mindanao State University (MSU) Marawi campus, were apparently “mercilessly killed by Maute-Daesh,” said the Armed Forces spokesman, Gen. Restituto Padilla. The government had said the Maute Group was bent on getting full recognition from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as “Daesh”) by setting up a stronghold.
Precisely to prevent this symbolic takeover, the Marawi LGU had made sure not to abandon the key government offices in the city, despite the state of siege, Padilla said.
According to Padilla, the discovery of the bodies of the eight women was apparently different from earlier reports that nine civilians had been killed. Those nine people, whom Padilla described as workers, have not yet been found until press time.
Also on Saturday, Padilla said the government troops rescued 100 civilians stranded in the city, having been trapped when violence broke out Tuesday afternoon (May 24). Sixteen others were also rescued earlier, on Thursday. Authorities earlier estimated that 90 percent of the city’s 200,000 residents have already evacuated to Iligan City and nearby areas.
Padilla said the troops continued the difficult task of flushing out the Maute members house by house, street by street, and restore order in the city.
This, as surgical air strikes are still being resorted to as well, to add to the pressure on the militants.
