The decapitated bodies of five civilians have been found in a Philippine city occupied by Islamist rebels, the military said on Wednesday, warning the number of residents killed by rebel “atrocities” could rise sharply as troops retake more ground.
The discovery of the bodies would be the first evidence that civilians trapped in besieged Marawi City have been decapitated during the five-week stand by militants loyal to the Islamic State group, as some who escaped the city have previously reported.
Lieutenant Colonel Emmanuel Garcia of the Western Mindanao Command said in a text message to reporters the five decapitated were found with the other 17 civilians killed by militants.
The battle for Marawi entered its 36th day on Wednesday, with intense gunfights and bombing in the heart of the town and black-clad fighters seen from afar running between buildings as explosions rang out.
The rebels’ hold on Marawi, while incurring the full force of a military for years trained by its US counterparts, has much of the region on edge, concerned that IS’ influence may run deeper than thought.
Those fears are also being felt in Malaysia and Indonesia, whose nationals are among the Maute group of rebels fighting in Marawi, suggesting the group may have built a cross-border network that has gone largely undetected.
Military spokesman Restituto Padilla said it was likely that many civilians had been killed and the death toll – already at 27 before the latest 17 were announced – was only what the authorities could confirm independently. He said a “significant number” of dead had been seen by those who had escaped fighting.
“(It) may increase significantly once we are able to validate all this information,” Padilla told reporters.
Padilla said the cause of those deaths would be “atrocities committed by the terrorists”. Among those atrocities, the army says, have been residents being forced to loot homes, take up arms, or become sex slaves.
Videos have appeared this month on the website of IS’ Amaq news agency of hostages in Marawi pleading for their lives, saying they would be beheaded if air strikes were not stopped. Clips have also appeared of people on their knees, shot in the head from behind.
The military has so far been reluctant to discuss the possibility that the real impact of the fighting on civilians could be far more severe than has been reported.
It has played down the impact of daily air strikes and mortar assaults aimed at rebel sniper positions, which have reduced areas of the lakeside town to rubble and alarmed people stuck there, some of whom have said the shelling was a bigger threat than the militants.
Disaster officials are keen to start dangerous missions to recover what they believe are large numbers of bodies in the streets near the conflict zone.
President Rodrigo Duterte said on Tuesday he was prepared from the outset for a long fight against a well-armed Maute motivated only by murder and destruction. “Some of those who traveled to the Middle East got contaminated, brought the ideology back home and promised to declare war against humanity,” he said.
Military spokesman Padilla called for patience and said troops needed more time to flush out the gunmen and secure the city. “Our combat environment is sensitive. First, there are trapped civilians that we have to protect. They also have hostages and third, there are many traps so we have to clear buildings slowly,” he said.
Some 71 security forces and 299 militants have been killed and 246,000 people displaced in the conflict, which erupted after a failed attempt on May 23 to arrest a Filipino militant commander backed by IS leadership.
