The dire situation of thousands of families displaced by fighting in parts of North Cotabato and sheltered in makeshift evacuation centers in Datu Piang town in Maguindanao is a potential humanitarian disaster that has been hidden from the public for too long.

For this reason, the Center for International Law (CENTERLAW) calls on military authorities in Central Mindanao to allow full access to the evacuation centers not only to media but also to humanitarian aid workers.

CENTERLAW, a human rights and humanitarian law advocacy group, made the call following reports that around 50 Filipino journalists covering the situation in evacuation centers in Mindanao were briefly held by the military in Maguindanao province for lack of “clearance,”

While the media convoy by itself is not there to bring humanitarian relief to the evacuees, its purpose was to get a picture of the humanitarian dimensions of the conflict that has not been made public because the military has set up a cordon that prevented access to the evacuation centers, according to reports.

Lawyer Romel Regalado Bagares, Executive Director of CENTERLaw, reminded military authorities that they have a duty under international humanitarian law to extend humane treatment to non-combatants – the civilians – caught in the crossfire of a conflict.

Under the Geneva Conventions Additional Protocol II of 1977, which applies in internal conflicts, forced civilian displacement may be undertaken legally only when civilians’ very safety or “imperative military reasons” require it, said the lawyer.

He added that article 17 of the Protocol provides that civilians cannot be forced from their “whole territory” for reasons connected with the conflict.

Moreover, if civilians have to be moved for either of those two reasons—safety or military imperatives, the military authorities must ensure that evacuees are placed under protected, hygienic, and humane conditions, and their displaced must be as short-lived as possible.

Many evacuees have been displaced from their homes in Aleosan and Midsayap since August last year.

“Relief operations are to be undertaken when the civilian population is suffering undue hardship because of the conflict,” said Bagares.  The lawyer warned that military authorities may be held liable for abetting or otherwise causing a humanitarian disaster in the region because of an iron-fisted treatment of civilians displaced in the fighting.

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