Twenty people died in a single day in the southern Philippines following a fresh outbreak of unrest in the strife-torn region, officials said on Saturday.
The military earlier said that 15 people were killed Friday after heavy fighting between Government forces and Al Qaeda-linked militants in the jungle region, where various Muslim extremist and bandit groups are active.
Three plantation workers including a father and son were shot dead in the southern island of Basilan on Friday in a suspected extortion attempt, said Senior Inspector Gean Gallardo, police chief of the island’s capital.
“These three victims are just ordinary workers who have no axe to grind with anybody,” he said.
On the same day, an eight-year-old girl and a 43-year-old man were killed by a mortar shell fired by the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) in the southern town of Pikit, said regional military spokesman Colonel Dickson Hermoso.