Oct. 27 (EUROPA PRESS) –
At least two soldiers of the Philippine Army have died this Thursday in an attack perpetrated by members of the guerrillas of the New People’s Army (NPA, for its acronym in English) in the province of Abra, in the north of the country.
The Philippine forces have indicated that, in addition, a third soldier has disappeared after the attack, which occurred when members of the Army were traveling to the municipality of Licuán-Baay to carry out rescue operations after the magnitude 6.4 earthquake in the Richter scale that has taken place this week.
“We strongly condemn this barbaric act by a communist terrorist group,” said Richardo García III, Colonel of the Armed Forces, referring to the NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party, according to information collected by the newspaper ‘Inquirer’.
Thus, it has guaranteed the population, “especially the relatives of the soldiers, that everything possible will be done to persecute the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”
Clashes between the military and members of the NPA are frequent in the Philippines. Classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, the NPA is the military wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines and emerged in the 1960s, making it one of the longest-running left-wing armed insurgencies in Asia.
