110 Inmates on Run after Philippines’ Biggest Jailbreak
Local Editor
Philippine authorities said Thursday they had captured or killed dozens of men who escaped in the nation's biggest jailbreak but more than 110 remained on the run in vast farmlands and isolated villages of the nation's strife-torn south.
Suspected guerrillas stormed a decrepit jail in the major southern city of Kidapawan Wednesday, freeing 158 prisoners and killing a guard, in what authorities said may have been a bid to free fellow rebels.
Forty of the inmates had been recaptured by Thursday afternoon, with seven others killed in the manhunt that involved security forces firing mortars at some escapees in remote farmlands and jungles, jail authorities said.
But they emphasized there were many obstacles in the operation.
"This is a very wide area. Aside from sugar, rubber and coconut plantations, there are areas and camps held by rebels that we cannot easily enter," jail warden Peter Bongngat told AFP.
Thirty-nine of the escapees were accused of rape, while 35 were in jail for murder, according to a list released by prison authorities.
In Kabacan, a farming town about 30 kilometers from Kidapawan, residents tipped off search teams about inmates who were hiding and sleeping in rubber and palm oil plantations, using thick vegetation as cover.
"We are alarmed because [prisoners] are convicted criminals. But what's good is that our citizens are cooperating," Kabacan mayor Herlo Guzman told AFP.
The southern Philippines is home to extremist gangs that have recently declared allegiance to Daesh [ISIS/ISIL].
The southern region of Mindanao is the ancestral homeland of the Muslim minority in the largely Catholic Philippines.
The badly overcrowded jail in Kidapawan, 950 kilometers south of Manila, housed about 1,500 inmates. It is a run-down former school building that militants have targeted repeatedly over the past 15 years.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team
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