MARAWI, Philippines (AP) — Thousands of displaced remain in emergency shelters and the threat of Islamic extremists and unexploded bombs lingers in the rubbles of a southern Philippine city, where survivors on Wednesday remembered a disastrous five-month siege by Islamic State group-aligned fighters last year.
The Rev. Teresito Soganub, who survived 117 days of captivity by the extremists in Marawi city, said that aside from the devastation, it would take years for him and other civilians to overcome the horror of having lived through airstrikes and gunbattles that threatened them day and night.
“I‘m still very, very far from a full recovery,” Soganub told The Associated Press by telephone. “If it takes long to rebuild and reconstruct, it‘s more difficult to deal with this psychological and psychiatric trauma.”
The government is yet to finalize a rehabilitation plan to rebuild the most devastated commercial and residential districts, where the carcasses of pockmarked homes, buildings and mosques stand eerily and gathering weeds in an urban wasteland guarded by troops.
The city‘s journey back to normalcy may take years and at a huge cost, said officials, some of whom have warned that if the rehabilitation falters, the restiveness it would generate could be exploited by Muslim militants.
“There were lots of bullets, a lot of cannon fire and airstrikes that targeted us because we were with the ISIS group that was being pounded by troops,” Soganub said from his southern home province, where he held Mass with family and friends. “Each day of the 117 days, 24 hours, we were facing death every time and our lives depended on the temperament of our hostage takers.”
Residents, officials and military officers released dozens of white balloons and doves into the blue sky from a government complex in lakeside Marawi and prayed for peace and recovery.
The May 23 siege that was crushed in October killed more than 1,100 mostly militants, left the mosque-studded city‘s heartland in rubbles, prompted President Rodrigo Duterte to place the southern third of the country under martial law and reinforced Asia‘s fears that the Islamic State group was gaining a foothold in the region. The months of intense fighting and explosions forced hundreds of thousands of residents in Marawi and outlying towns to flee for their lives.
While many have returned home after the attack was quelled, thousands more whose houses were destroyed in the main battle area that remains off-limits to civilians are still living in evacuation centers and temporary shelters, officials said. At least 50 people are listed as missing.
A regional official, Zia Alonto Adiong, said it was crucial to keep the public informed.
“One day in an evacuation center is already too long for someone who has lost everything,” Adiong said. “I think the frustration comes from the fear of expulsion, fear of not knowing what‘s going to happen.”