Philippines: After months of displacement in Zamboanga, communities long for home
Months after fighting stopped in Zamboanga, southwest Philippines, a reported 40,000 people remain displaced from their homes, living in difficult conditions in overcrowded evacuation centres or hosted by relatives. The ICRC and Philippine Red Cross are working to improve access to health care, sanitation and water in the centres, and are helping people to restore their livelihoods.
More than nine months after the end of the fighting between the Moro National Liberation Front and the Philippines government, over 40,000 people are still living in evacuation centres in Zamboanga. Behind these figures lie the lives that have been put on hold, all of them wondering when life will return to normal.