DSWD: Zambo IDPs to be moved

DSWD: Zambo IDPs to be moved

to transitory sites before yearend

ZAMBOANGA CITY (ZNS) - The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) announced that the sports complex will be cleared of internally displaced persons (IDPs) before the end of this year.

DSWD Sec. Corazon Soliman made this announcement in a press conference Friday after she and other DSWD officials visited the IDPs at the evacuation centers and transitory sites.

Undersecretary Alexander Pama, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) executive director, and Mayor Ma. Isabelle Climaco-Salazar accompanied Soliman in her visit to the IDPs.

Soliman said the remaining IDPs will be transferred on December 15, this year, to different transitory sites namely in Masepla, Barangay Mampang, Buggoc and Silsillah, Barangay Sta and in Barangay Tulungatung.

The transitory sites consist of bunkhouses or single-detach housing units which are more comfortable to stay compared to the tents set up in evacuation centers.

It is called transitory site since it only serves as the temporary shelters for the IDP-families while their permanent housing units are still being constructed.

Soliman disclosed that there are still 2,304 IDP-families consisting of 12,476 individuals that still houses at the Mayor Joaquin F. Enriquez Jr. Memorial Sports Complex.

The sports complex served as the biggest evacuation center when more than 100,000 people fled their homes when the 20-day standoff in September 2013 broke out.

The standoff started when hundreds of Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) members loyal to MNLF founding-chair Nur Misuari infiltrated this city.

Meanwhile, Soliman said the R.T. Lim Boulevard has been cleared of IDP-families since the displaced sama-badjaos were already transferred to the transitory sites in the barangays of Sta. Catalina and Mampang.

She disclosed that the DSWD has already spent Php 363.9 million in attending to the needs of the IDPs since the standoff broke out last year. (PNA) (090914)