More than 150 inmates escape in jail raid
Armed rebels stage Philippines’ biggest jailbreak in violence-plagued south, killing one guard
KIDAPAWAN, Philippines: Suspected Muslim rebels staged the Philippines’ biggest jailbreak yesterday when they stormed a dilapidated jail in the violenceplagued south of the country, freeing 158 inmates and killing a guard, authorities said.
The attack added to a long history of daring jailbreaks in the southern Philippines, home to a decades- old Muslim separatist insurgency as well as extremist gangs that have recently declared allegiance to the Islamic State group.
More than 100 armed men believed to have been led by a local Muslim guerrilla commander attacked the jail in Kidapawan city about 1: 00am in what appeared to be a wellplanned raid to free fellow rebels, jail authorities said.
“There are high-value targets in our custody who were the subject of a rescue operation,” jail warden Peter John Bonggat told AFP.
The assailants were heavily armed and overwhelmed the 24 guards at the jail, according to Bonggat, who was involved in the effort to repel the gunmen and said one of his officers had been killed.
At least 158 prisoners escaped, Bonggat told AFP, although it was unclear how many of those were linked to the attackers or were just other inmates who took advantage of the chaos.
Bonggat said the jail, which housed 1,511 inmates, was a rundown former school building located in a forested, secluded area.
Kidapawan, 950 kilometres (590 miles) south of Manila, is home to various Muslim rebel groups, criminal gangs and communist insurgents.
“We have many Muslim personalities (in the jail) that are members of various organised, syndicated groups,” Bonggat said.
He said the attackers were believed to be militants who had broken away from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the nation’s largest Muslim rebel organisation which is in peace talks with the government.
Acting provincial governor Shirlyn Macasarte said there were intelligence reports that one of the breakaway groups, the
There are high-value targets in our custody who were the subject of a rescue operation. Peter John Bonggat, jail warden
Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters, had been planning the jailbreak.
“We had reports that a group of BIFF members wanted to rescue brothers who were involved in killings and had experience of making bombs,” Macasarte told ABS-CBN television.
Six of the escapees were killed and eight captured as security forces hunted them in nearby farmlands throughout Wednesday, according to Bonggat.
Islamic militants have staged a series of raids on poorly funded and secured jails in the south over the past 15 years that have led to mass escapes, but authorities said Wednesday’s was the largest.
“It is the biggest ever jailbreak in our history,” Bureau of Jail Management and Penology spokesman Xavier Solda told AFP.
“We were really underpowered and undermanned.”
The southern region of Mindanao is the ancestral homeland of the Muslim minority in the largely Catholic Philippines.
The MILF, which has about 10,000 armed followers, is the largest of the rebel groups that have been fighting since the 1970s for independence or autonomy.
More than 120,000 people have been killed in the rebellion.
The MILF has in recent years been observing a ceasefire as part of peace efforts with the government.
MILF spokesman Von al- Haq told AFP the group did not know who the attackers in Wednesday’s raid were.