ZAMBOANGA CITY (Updated) -- One person was killed while 35 others were wounded when a group of gunmen waylaid truckloads of rubber plantation workers Friday morning in the island province of Basilan.
Western Mindanao Command spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Randolph Cabangbang said the incident happened around 11:30 a.m. Friday at Block 26, Sapah Bulak village, Sumisip, Basilan.
Cabangbang said no identities of the victims were immediately disclosed except that they are all workers of a rubber plantation of the Tumahubong Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries Integrated Development Cooperative (TARBIDC).
Colonel Lope Dagoy said the workers were onboard two trucks going to TARBIDC when they were intercepted and shot by the armed men suspected to be members of terrorist group Abu Sayyaf.
One of the workers died on the spot and 35 were wounded. Six of them are in critical condition, the report added.
Cabangbang said 14 of the wounded were flown to nearby Zamboanga City.
The ambush on Friday was the third attack on TARBIDC this year.
The first was last April 5 when al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf bandits killed three militiamen providing security for the rubber tappers. Seven rubber plantation workers were injured in that attack.
Three of the fatalities were militiamen who were killed when a group of Abu Sayyaf bandits led by Radzmir Janatul ambushed them.
On July 11, suspected Abu Sayyafs also ambushed a truckload of rubber plantation laborers of TARBIDC, killing six and wounding 22 others.
Dagoy said Friday's attackers were the same ones who fired on one of the plantation's trucks in July. (Bong Garcia/AP/Sunnex)