Marawi Picturebook: A Year on, Philippine City’s Residents Struggle
2018.05.22
Marawi, Philippines
One year after Islamic State-linked extremists seized Marawi in the southern Philippines and unleashed a ferocious five-month battle with government forces, locals are trying to put their lives back together amid the city’s bombed-out landscape.
The militants, led by Isnilon Hapilon and the Maute clan, launched their attack on May 23, 2017. They targeted Marawi, the only predominately Muslim city in the largely Catholic country.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the military to respond with strength – ground troops backed up by air strikes drove surviving miltants to surrender in October. In all, 1,200 people, mostly militants including Hapilon, died during the fighting, according to the military.
Since then, the roughly 200,000 residents who were forced to flee have been allowed to return to comb through the rubble to find remants of their lives before the fighting broke out. Many areas remain off limits as troops remove unexploded ordnance left over from bombing runs and from the fleeing militants.