Marawi residents pick up the pieces bit by bit
MARAwI CIty: More than two months have passed since the Philippine government declared victory over a well-armed, well-organised and highly motivated cabal of militants that laid siege to Marawi.
But the lakeside city, a centre of Islamic heritage in the insurgency-wracked southern island of Mindanao, remains half empty.
Although the military has allowed half the city’s more than 200,000 residents to return, the devastated half – a sprawling field of debris, unexploded ordnance and booby traps – is still no man’s land.
Post-conflict assessment teams are putting together a plan to rebuild Marawi.
Experts estimate it may take anywhere from 50bil to 90bil pesos (RM4bil to RM7.3bil), but they are not sure how long the rebuilding process will take.
A senior military official said the soonest bomb-disposal units can clear the ruins of improvised explosive devices is in April, almost a year from when the militants launched the armed conflict.
For now, the multitude whose lives have been upended by the conflict will have to wait until they are allowed to return to a city pul- verised into rubble and dust.
Even then, what awaits them is more uncertainty, and the ever looming threat that the militants may soon return.
On May 23, about 1,000 gunmen stormed and seized large parts of Marawi in an audacious bid to turn the city into a “wilayah”, or province, of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (IS).
What followed was a war that raged for five months.
By the time the Philippine military declared victory on Oct 23, more than 1,000 militants, government troops and civilians were dead, half of Marawi lay in ruins, and about 400,000 people living in and near the city were displaced.
Beyond the arch that marks Marawi’s borders, life was again stirring when The Sunday Times was there for six days from Dec 12.
At the Amai Pakpak hospital, among the first government buildings to be attacked by the militants, there was a constant shuffle of patients, nurses and doctors.
At the sprawling Mindanao State University (MSU), youths loitered along hallways in boisterous groups, chatting, reading, playing the guitar or checking out someone’s motorcycle.
Inside the university’s campus, which is a city in itself, a business district buzzed with commerce. Long queues were forming in restaurants, and the marketplace was buzzing with activity.
But from across a bridge just a few paces from city hall, devastation met the eye. Referred to either as “ground zero” or the “main battle area”, this was where the fiercest fighting between government troops and the militants took place.
No one is allowed to go there, as security forces continue to sweep the ruins for booby traps and explosives.
Most of those who used to live there are now staying in overcrowded, barely liveable evacuation centres, where resentment has been festering.
There has been no word on how soon they can return to their homes, or if they will be allowed to at all.
Meher Khatcherian, a protection delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said: “In a conflict area, people need to be assured a lot more security wise, and they need to understand what kind of response is needed, to see something more clear proposed to them put in place, because they can be traumatised, because they have lost a lot, because they might be reluctant to come back to an area, because they’re afraid the same could happen to them again.” —