DATU PIANG, Philippines — While millions of Muslims worldwide are preparing to welcome `Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, thousands of displaced Muslims in southern Philippines are still struggling to lead a decent life.
"This has been one year of hell for us," Rakhma Colot, a 31-year-old Muslim, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Friday, September 18.
Colot is among 250,000 displaced people still living in shelter camps after being displaced by the fighting between government troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the country’s biggest Muslim group.
For the pregnant mother of four, life is a daily struggle to feed her children.
Her husband earns about two dollars on a good day driving people around the centre in his tricycle.
But there have been many times when their children went to sleep hungry.
Most of the displaced people in the camps are living a miserable life in the shelter camps.
Surrounding fields are overrun by weeds and littered with debris.
There are no jobs and almost everyone relies on government or charity handouts that are becoming more scarce every day.
Though some semblance of order has been established with the help of aid agencies, scenes of destruction and tense security remain bitter reminders for the desperate villagers.
Military roadblocks check vehicles passing through, while armored personnel vehicles constantly prowl, adding to the garrison atmosphere.
Colot said her family has had to use muddy water to wash clothes and bathe. Their toilet is a hole shielded by grain sacks tied to sticks.
"We just pretend no one is watching," she said.
Mindanao, the birthplace of Islam in the Philippines, is home to more than 5 million Muslims.
The MILF has been struggling for an independent state in the mineral-rich southern region for some three decades now.
More than 120,000 people have been killed since the conflict erupted in the late 1960s.
Mindanao, the birthplace of Islam in the Philippines, is home to more than 5 million Muslims.
* Ordeal
Salik Usman is living the same ordeal.
The 47-year-old Muslim barely escaped with his wife and 11 children a hail of rocket-propelled grenades that rocked the southern Mindanao island.
"It was early in the morning when the explosions began,” said Usman, who looks older than his 47 years.
“We ran and ran, leaving behind everything until we reached this place," he said, looking around the muddy evacuation centre where about 3,000 people live in rundown shelters cobbled together from scrap metal, diand cardboard.
"The last thing I saw was my house being hit, and burning, and my carabao (farm buffalo) scampering away. The fighting has robbed me of everything."
His youngest son, only a year old, died at the evacuation centre about a month into the ordeal. He simply refused to eat, and withered away.
"He was war-shocked," said Usman.
Though they welcome news of a possible resumption of peace talks between the government and MILF, many displaced Muslims still doubt whether they will be able to lead a decent life again.
"But can they assure us that the guns will stop?" Colot asks.
"And our house is gone. While we want to return to our farm, what will we use to start over again?"
Source: IslamOnline
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