Fleeing NegOr villagers return home as AFP-NPA clashes subside

From the Philippine News Agency (Jan 19, 2021): Fleeing NegOr villagers return home as AFP-NPA clashes subside  (By Mary Judaline Partlow)

EVACUEES. Residents who fled their homes following days of skirmishes between the Philippine Army and the New People's Army in Barangay Trinidad, Guihulngan, Negros Oriental are shown in this undated photo. The residents returned to their homes Tuesday morning (Jan. 19, 2021) after the Army gave them clearance. (Photo courtesy of the 62nd IB, Philippine Army)

Around 30 families comprised of 120 to 150 individuals from a hinterland village in Guihulngan, Negros Oriental on Tuesday started returning to their homes as skirmishes between suspected New People’s Army (NPA) guerillas and the Philippine Army have died down.

Lt. Col. Melvin Flores, commander of the Army’s 62nd Infantry Battalion, in a phone interview, said they allowed the civilians to go back to their homes and farms after assuring it was already safe to do so.

“We have secured the area for them and have reassured them that the armed rebel group is no longer there,” he said.

The residents of Sitio Batong-buang in Barangay Trinidad of the said town fled their homes Saturday as a firefight between government troops and the suspected NPA insurgents erupted in the sub-village.

Initial reports said 20 families evacuated to the adjacent Sitio Punong, but the number grew as Guihulngan officials, led by Mayor Guido Reyes, through the City Social Welfare and Development Office, started handing out food assistance, the Army commander said.

The food aid was distributed at the barangay hall of Trinidad to mostly women and children as many male family members were not among those who evacuated, he said.

Flores said that on Saturday, four separate encounters took place in the vicinity of Batong-buang as soldiers clashed with around 40 armed NPA members.

The military was acting upon reports of the presence of the insurgents, who, Flores said, were just “passing through and asking for food from residents”.

Sporadic clashes followed as the NPA splintered into smaller groups, which warranted air strikes by two MG-520 attack helicopters of the Philippine Air Force on Sunday, he said.

No casualties were reported on the government side and from the civilian sector, while Flores said they believe that some rebels may have been injured or killed in the clashes, although no bodies were recovered, he added.

On Monday, troopers scoured the area and found what they believe was an abandoned encampment of the suspected NPA rebels, although the firefights had already ended.

Trinidad is one of the priority barangays of the provincial and local Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (TF-ELCAC) under President Rodrigo Duterte’s Whole of Nation Approach to attain inclusive and sustainable peace.

The provincial government, under the leadership of Gov. Roel Degamo, has an ongoing road project in the area connecting Trinidad to Moises Padilla in Negros Occidental.

https://www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1127873