2 killed, 1 injured in daytime ambush in BARMM town

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April 20, 2026 | 5:08pm

COTABATO CITY —Two Moro men were killed, while another was seriously wounded in an ambush in Barangay Sambulawan, Kadayangan town, Cotabato province, on Sunday afternoon, April 19.

Kadayangan is one of eight newly created towns in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area under the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, although it is located in Cotabato province, which is part of Administrative Region 12.

Capt. Steffie Salanguit, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office–Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, told reporters on Monday, April 20, that the ambush victims, Ambi Tukuran and Ali Habib Lumilis, died from bullet wounds sustained in the attack.

Tukuran and Lumilis, along with their companion Edmund Aliso, were riding a Honda Click motorcycle when they were shot by gunmen armed with M16 rifles and .45-caliber pistols along a stretch of highway in Barangay Sambulawan.

Tukuran and Lumilis were declared dead on arrival at Dr. Amado Provincial Memorial Hospital in nearby Midsayap town, Cotabato, where emergency responders brought them for treatment.

The attack left Aliso wounded. He is now confined in the same hospital under police guard.

Their assailants, wearing ski masks and dark-colored shirts, fled on getaway motorcycles.

Local executives in Midsayap and investigators from the Kadayangan Municipal Police Station said barangay officials are helping identify the perpetrators for prosecution.

Municipal police officials earlier told reporters that the ambush could be linked to the involvement of Tukuran’s family in a “rido,” or clan war in Moro vernacular, in their hometown of Nabalawag, also in the Bangsamoro Special Geographic Area.

The Tukurans are locked in a deadly rido with another large Moro family in Nabalawag.