NPA apologizes for wounding of rescue personnel in Davao Sur ambush

From InterAksyon (Mar 5): NPA apologizes for wounding of rescue personnel in Davao Sur ambush

The New People’s Army apologized Wednesday for the wounding of four emergency response personnel on March 2 when a command-detonated explosive set off during an ambush hit an ambulance accompanying a military convoy in Davao del Sur province.

The NPA’s Southern Mindanao Regional Command, in a statement released by its spokesman Rigoberto Sanchez, expressed “deep regret” and said it “has already ordered necessary assistance to be extended to” ambulance driver Genaro Doronio Dumayas, nurse Bonita dela Cruz, and rescue workers Arnel Comandante Veloroso and Alberto Simbajon Cabual of the Provincial Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council.

“We take responsibility for this act as we take cognizance of the fact that the medical staff and mobile medical units should not have been made target of any attack and whose protection and/or safety is guaranteed under international humanitarian law,” the rebel command said.

“We have also ordered for a full investigation and if complete data and evidence warrant, promise to undertake appropriate measures and impose disciplinary actions against the responsible NPA unit,” it added.

The statement said that fighters of the Mt. Apo Subregional Command had laid an ambush for troops of the Army’s 39th Infantry Battalion in Barangay Managa, Bansalan town the evening of March 2 but “failed to distinguish the ambulance from its target, the two military trucks.”

The rebels said the ambulance, which had been used “to collect the military casualties following its defeat earlier that day at 11:00 am, when the Red fighters ambushed them in sitio Bagsak, Barangay Managa,” was “inconspicuous in as far as it did not discharge its siren, nor was it using any headlights, as per orders from the 39th Infantry Battalion.”

They said the actual target of the explosion was the second of the two Army vehicles but, “regrettably, the blast affected the ambulance which was closely following the 6x6 truck.”

The rebels also assured local government authorities “that civilian and/or medical volunteers are not targets of attack and should not be punished in the course of their neutral and humanitarian duties” and promised to “review policies and procedures governing its tactical military operations to strengthen this resolve.”

At the same time, they urged “civilian authorities, the medical and rescue individuals and institutions to refrain from carrying out other tasks that grants advantageous positions to the enemy and adversely forces the Red fighters to assume (an) active defense.”

They also urged that medical transports “should have fixed distinctive signs recognizable at a distance like siren and appropriate lighting to prevent breach of their protective status whenever they enter areas of armed conflict.”

The NPA claimed to have killed two lieutenants and 12 other soldiers and wounded 11 others, while suffering one wounded.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/82065/npa-apologizes-for-wounding-of-rescue-personnel-in-davao-sur-ambush