MARAWI CITY (Reuters) – Khaliluddin Ismail returned home Sunday after five months of war here to find his house ransacked. But he’s still smiling.
“At least we have something left,” he said, standing in a room with clothes, toys, ornaments, and damaged pictures strewn across the floor. “Others have nothing. They lost their homes, they lost their lives.”
Ismail, 44, the Imam of a nearby mosque, considers himself one of the luckiest people in this city, which has been devastated by more than 150 days of battles between government forces and pro-Islamic State militants that killed more than 1,100 people and displaced some 350,000.
His house is in the safe zone here, an area long abandoned by residents but untouched by unrelenting shelling and military air strikes that have all but flattened this city’s commercial heart, destroying thousands of homes, shops, and vehicles.
Six days after troops killed the last remaining rebels, Ismail was among about 4,000 people allowed to return to their homes on Sunday in the Basak Malutlot area here.
Many like him have discovered their houses were looted and left in disarray. “I opened the door and I was shocked, but I‘m still happy to be home,” he said.
Ismail fled with his family on May 24 during a fierce three-day firefight that erupted just 50 meters away, when security forces tried to raid the hideout of notorious militant leader Isnilon Hapilon, Islamic State’s anointed “emir” in Southeast Asia.
Hapilon escaped, then issued a call to arms to hundreds of insurgents to initiate their planned takeover of Marawi. It sparked the country’s biggest urban battle in recent history, and fears that Islamic State’s extremist agenda had gained a foothold in the south of the mainly Catholic country.
There were scenes of joy and chaos as a convoy of returning residents poured in this city to a cacophony of horns and whistles, jamming what only a few hours earlier were deserted streets.
Armed police at checkpoints cross-checked documents and pictures of each passenger from the 712 families to guard against possible infiltration by militants.
Babies cried as officials at a public hall shouted on megaphones to try to establish order as hundreds jostled to register for the sack of rice and P5,000 ($97) allocated to each household.