Human rights and activist groups raised alarm over a police “rescue operation” of tribal students from a Church-run university in the central Philippines on Monday, February 15.
Media reports said authorities conducted the “rescue operation” after the children’s parents sought police help to recover the children from alleged “rebel recruiters.”
Police spokesperson Brig. Gen. Brandi Usana said the “21 Lumad minors … were actually rescued from a number of arrested suspects.”
The children have sought refuge in the Archdiocese of Cebu since 2018 during the height of military operations against communist rebels in the southern Philippines.
The group Save Our Schools Network, meanwhile, claimed that 21 students —15 minors and six adults — were taken away in the “rescue operation,” along with two teachers and two elders.
The network posted a live stream of the supposed “rescue operation” showing children screaming in a classroom as they were forced out by men in uniform.
“Their parents were supposedly forced and fetched out of their community in Davao del Norte by the military and the local government to justify this blatant attack,” read the Save our Schools network statement.
Military and police officials have been accusing schools run by indigenous peoples in the southern region of Mindanao of recruiting and training communist rebels.
Usana said the operation” “can be a big blow to the deceptive and devious handiwork of the [Communist Terrorist Group] members found recruiting minors as future armed combatants.”
The police officer said the tribal children have been missing for two years after being “trafficked from Davao del Norte to Cebu Province.”
He also claimed that tribal elders and parents “actually joined the police when they raided [the University of San Carlos] Retreat House.”
Human rights group Karapatan, however, questioned the conduct of the “rescue operation.”
“What kind of rescue operation involved force and coercion by uniformed elements like the [police],” read a statement from Karapatan secretary general Cristina Palabay.
She claimed that the students were victims of “forced evacuation amid military and paramilitary operations” in tribal communities in Talaingod town, Davao del Norte province.
She said the students were “obviously in distress as they were forced out of the Lumad school in Cebu, despite and even with the presence of their parents.”
The Student Christian Movement of the Philippines also condemned the incident, describing it as a “blatant disregard on human rights and democratic aspirations” by the tribal people.
Source: Licas Philippines
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