Dear Everyone,
I had the chance to talk to our five bylp fellows yesterday in Iligan just before they broke the fast and went to prayers. The meeting was possible because of the help of AFI staff based in Iligan.
Below were the highlights of the meeting:
Five Bylp is now safely evacuated in Iligan. The evacuation started last Wednesday and fortunately nobody in their family got harmed during the encounters in the city.
There are three types of evacuees:
One are those students who were evacuated from MSU campus. They have been taken care of especially the christian students. These students are now on their way to their home provinces after they were initially evacuated at MSU-IIT iligan.
The second evacuees are those in the formal evacuation center. There are five identified centers now around Iligan, numbering to three thousand persons per evac center. Just like any other newly evac center, there are some aspects that need to be improved, and the national government, the regional government and the city government of Iligan are now looking for ways to make things better for the evacuees.
The third one that might have not been presented in the news are those evacuees who sought shelter from their relatives in Iligan. This is where our bylp fellows are classified. This group has a better experience because they are formally housed but they still have problems with food and clothing.
The urgent need:
They said that they badly need food right now as supply is running out, and
since it is ramadan, they also need malong and mukna for prayers if resources will allow. If possible, we can sponsor iftar to chosen masjid community or evac center.
Our action:
We mobilize them to get the data today. Here in cdo, we will buy food worth 250k and repack it today at balay mindanaw peace center with ayala foundation staff and leadcom cdo helping out.
We will focus first on one barangay to make sure our meager resources will reach to the people who need them the most.
Notes:
I talked to our media friends who have been in Marawi since May 22, and they compared the war to Zamboanga city siege saying that Marawi is different from Zamboanga because it is a city wide war zone while Zamboanga has only few barangays. It looks like this will last for another two to three weeks, so for now, we welcome all possible help. There are about 220 families who evacuated from marawi, such a big number to attend to.
salamat…