The wretchedness occurring daily in Mindanao rarely makes it to news headlines because dominant Manila believes it remains the moral epicenter of ethics and policy in the country. Carsten Stormer reacquaints us with our national, swept-under-the-rug shame—Muslim and Christian countrymen are suffering, in indefensible numbers, while we keep our eyes negligently shut tight

The men who take her son away are recognizable even without their masks. They carry machine guns and wear uniforms. Their nametags and rank insignias are torn off. They have chosen the right moment.

People in the village of Crossing in the province of Maguindanao wait for their aid deliveries from the Red Cross. By the thousands, they stand in long lines, hoping for bags of rice and vitamin-enriched cooking oil. They are hungry. Yet on this day, the Red Cross will not be coming.

Instead of trucks loaded with aid goods, military vehicles enter the refugee camp and capture sons, fathers, and husbands. Among them, Rabah Dinhasam, a 23-year-old farmer. (This is not his real name, and all the names of refugees in this article have been changed to protect them from reprisals.)

The men yell orders, lead him away, and strike his head and shoulders with the butt of their guns. Along with two other men, they force him onto the flatbed of a truck. That was on May 7 of this year, says Rabah’s mother, who had witnessed everything.

Kaisala Lagduban wears a yellow headscarf interwoven with golden threads. Her hands are trembling. She is 45 years old but looks like 65, with deep furrows and heavy bags under her eyes. Sad, old eyes wandering back and forth while searching for the right words. She fears that the men could come for her, too, if she relates what she saw on that day. That is why she is hiding in this refugee camp, which used to be a school in the city of Datu Piang. More than 600 families live there in ramshackle homes made of plastic tarpaulins, branches, and planks—more than 3,000 people, but nobody knows the exact number.

Her hands are trembling. Sad, old eyes wandering back and forth while searching for the right words. She fears that the men could come for her, too, if she relates what she saw on that day.

Nobody has told her where they had brought her son, says Kaisala Lagduban. The masked men only told her not to ask any questions or cause any trouble. Other women were more courageous. “They were standing in front of their husbands, clinging to them, and insisting that they were taken along with them, no matter where.” The attackers did, indeed, let go of their victims, she says. Kaisala Lagduban wishes she could have been that courageous.

A week later, the body of Makel Salkamul, one of the men who had disappeared on May 7, was found in the Rio Grande. His body was covered with tiny wounds, the result of torture. Ever since then, Kaisala Lagduban knew that she would never see Rabah again.

Over the past two months, the situation in Mindanao in the South of the Philippines has worsened considerably. The province of Maguindanao has been particularly hard hit. It is an area of swamps, mountains, and rice fields. Over the past six weeks, the number of refugees has doubled to about 350,000. They find shelter in evacuation centers or makeshift camps. Medical care is catastrophically deficient. The Philippine Army and the rebels of the Moro Islamic Liberation (MILF) engage in daily skirmishes.

Mindanao, the southernmost island of the Philippines, is the darkroom of the archipelago.

Far away from the dream beaches and world-class diving spots, the region is the site of Asia’s longest-raging conflict, a 400-year-old feud between the Moros, the Muslim natives, and the non-native Christians. The past centuries read like an old robber-baron novel. First came the Spanish, then the Americans, and later, following their independence, the people of the Philippines. They all colonized the island, their ships spitting out Christian missionaries and settlers. Muslims were slowly becoming a minority in their homeland, disadvantaged and neglected. The Philippines’ version of Tibet, only without the Dalai Lama—and a lot more violence.

Yet, this conflict is not a religious war. Since the 1970s, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) has battled the Philippine army in a guerilla war to gain more autonomy. It is all about the distribution of wealth: Mindanao is rich in natural resources such as gas, oil, and precious woods, but all the profits are channeled elsewhere. Mindanao, which has a Muslim majority, ranks among the poorest areas in the Philippines. In addition, the Moros’ collective identity plays an important part: they feel like strangers in a hostile and Christian country.

In early August of last year, the MILF and the Philippine government finally agreed to sign a treaty that would guarantee the Moros more autonomy, and the people of Mindanao began to dream of paved roads, doctors, hospitals, jobs, and better education. At the very last moment, however, a coalition of politicians and technocrats stopped the signing of the agreement by court order, arguing that the memorandum was unconstitutional. The deputy governor of Cotabato province was a member of the coalition, as were mayors and senators who would have had to cede some of their power—and encounter financial loss—if the Moro would have been granted their rights. Many own land that used to belong to the Moros or had gotten wealthy exploiting the land’s natural resources.

Nobody goes to sleep that night: children are crying, women are whining, and men are staring impassively into the darkness, unable to show any kind of emotion.

Immediately following the end of the peace negotiations, fighters of Abdurahman Macapaar and Ameril Umbra Kato, two renegade MILF commanders, burnt down Christian villages, massacred their population, and ransacked their homes. The army fought back and has tried ever since to capture, or kill, both rebel leaders. They hide in the swamps and mountains, demand the signing of the peace treaty, and continue their war against the army by ambushing or attacking patrols and army camps, or exploding bridges. A bounty of 10 million pesos for both Macapaar and Umbra Kato has been offered as the Philippine government and MILF leadership continue to talk about peace negotiations, all the while trying to avoid talking about  war.

In Maguindanao, not a day goes by in the month of June without skirmishes or combat. Now they crowd into the clearing surrounded by swamps and idle rice fields, and cobble together new homes made of branches and tarpaulins. Aadila is clinging to the only personal thing she was able to save—a small, embroidered purse with a brass clasp, as if trying to hold on to something. “This is where we are going to stay, a year or maybe two.”

Two days ago, they fled here from their village of Reina Regente. The grenades had struck very close, much closer than usual. A little earlier, Aadila had seen strangers standing at the banks of the Rio Grande. The men were running, as if trying to flee. They wore uniforms and machine guns. Yet, the 75-year-old could not tell whether they were soldiers or rebels. It was dawn, and “my eyes are not so good anymore.” The uniformed men disappeared into the shrubbery. Soon after, the villagers heard explosions, and grenades fired by the 54th Infantry battalion, which is based nearby. It was time to flee for the 251 families of Reina Regente. About 1,300 people set out in boats across the Rio Grande. They were safe, for now.

Before they could see the fire, they could smell it while still sitting in their boats (the wind was blowing the smoke in their direction). Standing on the other side of the river, they could see their houses burning. In the light of the flames, they made out the uniforms of those torching the houses in Reina Regente.

Life in the camp is all about gathering news and rumors. Have the soldiers pulled back? Where has the MILF taken up position? Have there been new battles? When will aid deliveries from the WFP of the United Nations or the Red Cross arrive? Existence in the camp is like living in a vacuum, where time doesn’t exist.

In Datu Piang alone, 95 civilians have died as a result of the war over the past few months, among them 40 children. The real number, however, is likely higher.

They thought they were safe. Yet, that same night, they find themselves in the line of fire again. They hear the explosions close by, and behind Aadila’s shack, tracer bullets are visible in the darkness, like firecrackers on New Year’s Eve. All the while, it is pouring. The first floods from the monsoon. There is no escape. From all sides water is coming in, soaking the inhabitants. Nobody goes to sleep that night: children are crying, women are whining, and men are staring impassively into the darkness, unable to show any kind of emotion.

Three kilometers away is Datu Piang, a city without hope, which for the past five months has been without electricity. The city has only one doctor and one nurse, yet it is overcrowded with refugees. It is safe here. In the past six weeks alone, the population has swelled to almost 90,000, up from 50,000—refugees make up two-thirds. Their living quarters are all over, crowding sport arenas, schools, cemeteries, mosques, and the town’s only church. Parents here name their newborns Bazooka or Rambo, because they were born during a mortar attack or other shelling.

In Datu Piang alone, 95 civilians have died as a result of the war over the past few months, among them 40 children. The real number, however, is likely higher. In the camps on the outskirts of town, infants and the elderly die of common diseases such as exhaustion, malnutrition, diarrhea, but also of malaria, typhus, and tuberculosis. In Muslim tradition, they are buried immediately and do not appear on any statistics. One of them was Siddiq Mohada, 52, a father of seven. They buried him on June 4, after he had died from a lung infection because he could not afford the right medicine. Together with his family, he had fled the raging violence four times over the past two years. In the end, he did not have the strength anymore.

In a makeshift health center in Datu Piang, nurse Ziram measures the pulse of an infant and shakes her head. The child’s breathing is shallow and fast. The child is coughing, with eyes wide open and a tube sticking out of a small nose. The child will most likely not survive the night. The father watches his child die. The next morning, the bed is empty and the man gone; 25 kilometers away in Datu Saudi, rebels lay an ambush. They shoot three Philippine soldiers while they are washing themselves in a stream. Later that day, an exchange of fire occurs along the dusty road that crosses Datu Piang, and at night the 54th infantry battalion fires artillery howitzers. Two days later, soldiers supported by helicopters storm the rebels’ hideout, killing 30. A solution seems so far away.

Postcript:
This article was written in May of this year, during the peak of hostilities. While the MILF and the AFP have since negotiated a ceasefire and engaged in peace talks (again), the internally displaced people (I.D.P.) in Maguindanao still stay in primitive evacuation centers. Used to false promises, they are afraid to return home, and would rather be quartered in such miserable circumstances. The ceasefire, which started in June, still holds as of this writing, even as the people in Mindanao celebrate the holy month of Ramadan. As long as AFP soldiers are based in the villages, people refuse to return home. There are still approximately 300,000 I.D.P.s in  Maguindanao.