COTABATO CITY — The Bangsamoro government said it has extended humanitarian support to no fewer than 97,000 villagers in flooded areas in its Special Geographic Area and two provinces close to the now inundated 220,000-hectare Ligawasan Delta, since Monday.
The Ligawasan Delta, a catch basin for more than a dozen rivers that springs from mountain ranges in Bukidnon, Cotabato, Maguindanao del Norte, Maguindanao del Sur, South Cotabato and Sultan Kudarat provinces overflowed after last week’s heavy downpours in Central Mindanao, inundating 29 towns around.
Reports obtained on Wednesday from the office of Chief Minister Abdulrauf A. Macacua of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and their calamity response outfit, the BARMM Rapid Emergency Action on Disaster Incidence (READi), stated that at least 29 Bangsamoro towns in Maguindanao del Sur, Maguindanao del Norte provinces and in the Special Geographic Area are flooded since last weekend.
BARMM-READi emergency responders, local government units and personnel of the provincial disaster management offices in Maguindanao del Norte and Maguindanao del Sur had relocated 46,223 flood-stricken villagers to safe areas in rescue operations that started last Sunday.
Mr. Macacua said on Wednesday that he has directed the officials of the BARMM-READi to expand their emergency response operations to farther areas in Maguindanao del Sur and Maguindanao del Norte.
Municipal and provincial officials had told reporters on Wednesday that agencies of BARMM had distributed at least 26 tons of food supplies to villagers whom rescuers had relocated to makeshift relief sites and multi-purpose covered courts in high grounds far from their flooded barangays.
Mr. Macacua and the director of the BARMM-READi, Mohammad Farzieh B, Abutazil, are together overseeing the Bangsamoro government’s emergency response operations in the flooded areas inside the core territory of the autonomous region. — John Felix M. Unson
