'One year of hell' for Philippine conflict displaced

Sweat covers the sinewy arms of Salik Usman as he patiently weaves palm fronds to patch a leaking tent that has served as his family's home for more than a year.

Usman, a Muslim, looks older than his 47 years, with deep creases on his face.

He blames a slight facial twitch on frazzled nerves that have not calmed since August last year, when he, his 11 children and wife barely escaped a hail of rocket-propelled grenades fired by Muslim separatist rebels who carved a deadly trail across the Philippines' southern Mindanao island.

"It was early in the morning when the explosions began. We ran and ran, leaving behind everything until we reached this place," he said, looking around the muddy evacuation centre where about 3,000 people live in rundown shelters cobbled together from scrap metal, dirty tarpaulins and cardboard.

"The last thing I saw was my house being hit, and burning, and my carabao (farm buffalo) scampering away. The fighting has robbed me of everything."

His youngest son, only a year old, died at the evacuation centre about a month into the ordeal. He simply refused to eat, and withered away.

"He was war-shocked," said Usman.

Usman and his family were among the 750,000 Muslims and Christians who were forced to flee their homes because of the fighting between the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and government forces.

The 12,000-strong MILF has been waging a rebellion for an independent Islamic state across the fertile farming region of Mindanao since 1978.

The rebels broke a five-year ceasefire in August last year and launched attacks across Mindanao after the Supreme Court rejected a proposed land deal that would have given them control over what they say is their ancestral land.

While many people have returned to their homes to try to rebuild their lives, more than 250,000 remain in evacuation shelters or are staying with their relatives, according to the government.

Although the government and the MILF instituted another ceasefire in July, and look likely to resume peace talks soon, the displaced people of Mindanao remain deeply uncertain of their future.

Surrounding fields are overrun by weeds and littered with debris, there are no jobs and almost everyone relies on government or charity handouts that they say are becoming more scarce every day.

Some semblance of order has been established with the help of aid agencies, including the setting up of one-room schools, and vocational training for adults.

Scenes of destruction and tense security, however, remain bitter reminders for the desperate villagers.

Along the desolate stretch of highway cutting through a marshland of central Mindanao that for years has been the MILF's sanctuary, chickens roost in blackened structures that once were houses but were destroyed in battle.

Military roadblocks check vehicles passing through, while armoured personnel vehicles constantly prowl, adding to the garrison atmosphere.

For Rakhma Colot, 31, a Muslim woman who became pregnant with her fifth child at the evacuation camp, life is a daily struggle to feed her children.

"This has been one year of hell for us," she said.

Colot said her husband, a Christian named Bobby, earned about two dollars on a good day driving people around the centre in his tricycle, and there have been many times when their children went to sleep hungry.

She said they have had to use muddy water to wash clothes and bathe. Their toilet is a hole shielded by grain sacks tied to sticks.

"We just pretend no one is watching."

Colot said she welcomed the news that the MILF and the government had agreed to talk peace again.

"But can they assure us that the guns will stop?" she asked.

"And our house is gone. While we want to return to our farm, what will we use to start over again?"