Moro groups file case on Sulu massacre at UN rights body

The Suara Bangsamoro and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front will file a case before the United Nations Human Rights Council on the massacre perpetrated by the Special Warfare Group ofPhilippine Navy and Light Reaction Company of the Philippine Army. The massacre, which took place at dawn of February 4 claimed the lives of eight civilians from Ipil, Maimbung, Sulu. The announcement was made after the AFP absolved the soldiers responsible for the massacre.

Suara national chair Amira Lidasan called the results of an AFP probe claiming the slaughter was a legitimate encounter with the Abu Sayyaf "incredible". An investigation had yet to be made but the AFP had been quick to conclude that the victims were either members or coddlers of the Abu Sayyaf. The AFP merely reiterated the same line when it released on February 28 the results of an alleged investigation conducted by the Judge Advocate General's Office of the Western Mindanao Command.

The findings of an investigation by the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) released earlier revealed that no real encounter took place in Maimbung that day and that none of the victims was an Abu Sayyaf member. The report detailed how government troops assaulted the island village of Maimbung and gunned down residents as they pleaded for their lives and shouted that they were civilians.

Two of the raiders were also killed and five others wounded when they mistook each other as enemies and traded shots, according to the CHR.

The one-sided AFP investigation came under severe criticism, prompting Lt. Gen. Nelson Allaga, chief of the Western Mindanao Command, to announce that the results of their probe were just preliminary and that the soldiers involved in the incident were not yet in the clear.