5 dead, 2 hurt in Moro vs Moro gunfight in Pikit, Cotabato

COTABATO CITY — Five were killed, two of them barangay workers, in a gunfight involving two Moro groups armed with unlicensed assault rifles in Barangay Lagunde in the troubled Pikit town in Cotabato province on Saturday.

Pikit, located in the first district of Cotabato province, most known now as the “crime capital” of Region 12, where at least 60 people had been killed in one attack after another in its barangays since 2020, all unsolved.

Reports obtained on Sunday from the Pikit Municipal Police Station, the Cotabato Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-12, stated that a group led by Sindato Karim, who is chairman of Barangay Lagunde, and companions were pouring gravel on holes at stretches of a farm-to-market road in one of the villages under him when they were attacked by their longtime enemies, led by Basit Nando, also known as, “Abu Sabaya,” among his followers.

Two constituents of Karim, Malik Nawal Karim and Sammy Nawal Salik, were killed in the ensuing shootout that also resulted in three fatalities on Nando’s side. 

Karim and Nando both belong to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, according to local officials and traditional Moro datus in Pikit and in the nearby Pagalungan and Montawal towns in Maguindanao del Sur.

The local police identified Nando’s slain followers as Omar Abdillah, Kena Abdilla and a certain Kand’la, who all died from multiple gunshot wounds.

Two followers of Karim, Saddam Salaban and Karnain Esmael were wounded in the incident, now confined in a hospital.

The Army’s 90th Infantry Battalion covering hostile areas in Pikit is guarding against possible escalation of hostilities between the groups of Karim and Nando.