COTABATO CITY (Wednesday, August 27, 2025) — Gunmen in a watercraft shot dead three ethnic Maguindanaons while fishing in the sea few miles off Barangay Kabingaan in Tapul town in Sulu on Saturday, August 23.

Officials of the Sulu Provincial Police Office and the Police Regional Office-Bangsamoro Autonomous Region reported on Wednesday, August 27, that Esmael Mohammad, Gerald Mohammad and Oscar Arpa all died instantly from bullet wounds sustained in the offshore attack.

They were together in a pumpboat that their attackers shot with assault rifles and virtually destroyed with 40 millimeter grenade projectiles.

Personnel of the Maritime Police Station in Sulu had rescued the companion of the slain fishermen, Muktar Muhammad, and are still searching for another, John Mohammad.

The cadavers of the three dead men were recovered one after another by a seaborne Maritime police team in the territorial waters of Barangay Sulari in Parang, Sulu.

The victims, whose means of livelihood is deep-sea fishing, are from Milbuk, a predominantly Maguindanaon beachfront barangay in Palimbang town in Sultan Kudarat province in Region 12, which is so far from where they were attacked by gunmen who immediately escaped using their small motor-driven boat.

Police Brig. Gen. Jaysen De Guzman, director of PRO-BAR, said he has directed the officials of their units in Sulu to ask help from local officials in Sulu’s Tapul and Parang towns in identifying the group behind the atrocity for prosecution.