2 Maranaos dead, 4 hurt in clan war

COTABATO CITY — Two Maranaos were killed while four others were badly hurt in exchanges of gunfire between two feuding clans in Malabang, Lanao del Sur on Tuesday morning.

In separate reports on Wednesday to Brig. Gen. Prexy D. Tanggawohn, director of the Police Regional office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, the Malabang Municipal Police Station and the Lanao del Sur Provincial Police Office stated that the slain male Maranaos belonged to one of the two groups locked in a “rido,” or clan war in most Moro vernaculars, that traded shots using assault rifles at the border of Bacayawan and Tubok areas in the municipality.

Officials of the Malabang municipal police force told reporters on Wednesday that the two slain Maranaos were immediately buried by relatives in keeping with their religious tradition of burying the dead within 24 hours from time of death.

Four innocent villagers, two of them Maranaos and the two others both ethnic Maguindanaons, were hurt in the ensuing crossfire.

The four victims, who sustained bullet wounds in different parts of their bodies, are now confined in a hospital. — John Felix M. Unson