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Manila: The government has increased the reward for the arrest of two renegade Muslim rebels who had attacked 20 Christian villages in the south last month.
The Armed Forces also sent more troops to protect the food brigade for 280,000 people who were displaced by clashes between government and Muslim forces there, senior officials said.
"The Department of Interior and the local government has increased the reward offered for information leading to the arrest of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (Milf) commanders who were responsible for atrocities in North Cotabato, Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte," said Nicanor Bartolome, spokesman of the Philippine National Police.
"Ameril Umbra Kato and Abdurahman Macapaar alias Commander Bravo now carry a ten-million-pesos (Dh785,732) reward each for their arrest," said Bartolome. Earlier, the government offered a five-million-pesos (Dh392,952) reward for each of them.
The government offered a separate reward of five million pesos for the arrest of another Milf leader, Aleem Sulaiman Pangalian, who was also responsible for attacks in Lanao del Sur and Lanao del Norte.
For the past days, the Armed Forces sent a thousand troops, composed of two infantry battalions, to western Mindanao to help social and health workers who are giving assistance to 280,000 people displaced by the clashes in the south's affected areas, said Brigadier-General Jorge Segovia, spokesman of the military.
"The military men will take away the road blocks for food convoys intended for the displaced civilians," said Segovia,
"This will dispel reports from the local media that the military had blocked the humanitarian convoys to several resettlement areas," he added.
This assurance was given because of reports that the United Nations had experienced difficulties in delivering food to the evacuation centres in the south, said Segovia.
With inputs from Rafael Juan, Correspondent.
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