Special Report: Life of evacuees deplorable at the camps

Escape from crossfire

(First of two parts)

DATU PIANG, Maguindanao—Now that his year-old son has recovered from diarrhea inside an evacuation camp here, Zacaria Lipulis is anxious to go back to his farm in Barangay Ganta in nearby Datu Saudi Ampatuan town so he can adequately feed his family with corn and other root crops.

Lipulis, 34, his wife and four children have been surviving on food rations provided by relief agencies since April last year when they moved out of their home.

Skirmishes had engulfed his village in the course of the military’s artillery and air strikes against Ameril Ombra Kato and his followers.

The soldiers had been hunting Kato and two other field commanders of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—Aleem Ali Pangalian and Abdullah Macapaar or “Kumander Bravo”—for atrocities committed against civilians.

Hostilities between the government and Moro rebel forces heightened after the aborted signing of the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain on Aug. 5, 2008. The deal, initialed by negotiators from both parties, was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Lipulis says his family has been highly dependent on the food rations in their temporary shelter, even while he earns very little from driving a tricycle.

For most of the evacuees, the food aid is barely enough to last a month. This, compounded by dire health and sanitation conditions in the cramped evacuation camps, has prompted their demand of an immediate return to their homes and villages.

Latest figures on “validated IDPs” (internally displaced persons) from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) showed 200,913 people staying in the evacuation centers. At least three-fourths of the number are in Maguindanao province, where much of the armed clashes occurred.

The humanitarian crisis spawned by the massive displacement following the renewed outbreak of violence last year has become a pressing concern by itself, in many respects distinct from the peace process involving the government and the MILF.

Peace groups have criticized President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for sweeping under the rug the plight of the IDPs in her State of the Nation Address (SONA) on July 27.

The evacuees are hopeful, however, that the ceasefire declared before the SONA and the formal resumption of peace talks can also translate to the war evacuees heading for home safely.

Tired of coping with “less than humane living conditions” at the camps, the people have clung to prospects of spending the Islamic holy month of Ramadan in their homes, their children returning to school, and normally moving on with their lives.

‘Food loans’

Not getting enough food assistance, many evacuees have been forced to offer their monthly rations as collateral for “food loans,” according to public school teacher Akmad Guiamblang.

Every month, the World Food Program (WFP) distributes 25 kilograms of rice to every family, regardless of size.

On the other hand, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) gives bags containing 25 kg of rice, 24 packs of instant noodles, six cans of sardines, two gallons of cooking oil, one bottle of soy sauce, one kilo of sugar, one kilo of iodized salt, two packs of 100-gram instant coffee, and two bars of soap.

When the rations arrive, those with food loans pay back in food items, which their creditors either keep for themselves or sell to traders who swarm during the distribution period.

At the exchange, a half-gallon of cooking oil fetches for P35, sardines at P10 per can, and coffee at P25 per packet, a Cotabato-based weekly, Mindanao Cross, reported. It also documented an instance when a mother used her food ration card to guarantee payment to a local clinic for treating her sick child.

A Catholic parish in the town has also noted a “different way” of cheating in relief distributions.

Cards issued to certify that their holders are evacuees and thus qualified to receive food aid are being sold to non-evacuees for at least P1,000 each.

Most deplorable

The situation of evacuees in Datu Piang is the “most deplorable” compared to those staying in other areas of the province, says Eduardo Vasquez, the parish priest.

The town has been hosting them since Aug. 18, 2008, when they fled their communities, and their number has swelled since March following renewed offensives against Kato’s group.

Today, the Municipal Disaster Coordinating Council counted 6,228 displaced families or 31,140 people in 30 evacuation sites, mostly in the town center.

They came from 14 of Datu Piang’s 21 villages, Aleosan and Midsayap towns in North Cotabato, and Datu Saudi Ampatuan and Mamasapano towns in Maguindanao.

Each family usually make do with a four square-meter dwelling made of canvass or nipa. But for lack of space at the evacuation center, some 540 families have occupied the town’s Chinese cemetery.

Because of the congestion, garbage disposal has become a major health concern, especially among those below 6 years old who comprise one fifth of the total number of evacuees.

Only a third of them have access to potable water, according to the Department of Health (DoH) in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM).

Lipulis says water from three-foot-deep wells near the evacuation camp is usually used for washing clothes and utensils, but the people sometimes boil it for drinking.

In an evacuation camp at the back of the Notre Dame of Dulawan campus here, more than 800 evacuees use only two toilets.

Electricity supply has been cut off for more than four months.

Death toll: 94

As of June, 94 deaths had been reported in the evacuation centers. Of this figure, 46 were children and 36 were elderly people.

From Aug. 11, 2008, to June 30, the DoH-ARMM recorded 320 deaths in the region, 223 of which were caused by illness.

Children suffering from diarrhea, typhoid fever and cough have been the usual patients at the parish’s disaster response center in Datu Piang from May to June, Vasquez says.

The probable causes of these ailments are poor sanitation, lack of access to potable water and lack of food.

Regional health officials note the prevalence of infectious diseases in the evacuation sites and they are overwhelmed by the enormity of the problem. They are constrained by inadequate supply of drugs, medicines, medical supplies, logistics and personnel.

The evacuees are asking the government to indemnify relatives of those killed or injured. –Ryan Rosauro, Inquirer Mindanao

(To be continued Tuesday)