The 2014 peace deal includes a target of decommissioning 40,000 MILF combatants, a process that also involves turning in and putting weapons beyond use.Īs 1,301 more fighters joined the fold on Thursday, they bring the total number of decommissioned fighters to over 26,000, or more than 65 percent of the target, the autonomous Muslim region BARMM said. MILF fighters only agreed to turn over their firearms in 2014, in exchange for self-rule in Bangsamoro. MILF is an armed breakaway group of the Moro National Liberation Front - the oldest Muslim separatist movement in Mindanao - which continued to fight when its parent organization reached a peace agreement with Manila in the 1990s. MANILA: Over 1,000 Moro Islamic Liberation Front fighters were decommissioned on Thursday in a major step in the implementation of a peace agreement between the Philippine government and the country’s restive Muslim south, which had for decades sought independence from Manila.īangsamoro, a region covering predominantly Muslim areas of Mindanao, has been undergoing a peace process that began in 2014 when the government struck a permanent cease-fire deal with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front after almost four decades of conflict.

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