I woke up at five in the morning from a terrible noise. When I ran out of my house I saw how the whole sky was lighted by mortar fire. Everywhere around me, children were crying hysterically. I started to run away, away from all this terrible things that threatened to kill me. Ramla Unas is 20 years old and comes from the village of Macasampen which is one of eleven affected municipalities in the province of Maguindanao in southern Philippines. In the last two weeks of January, the people here were the victims of attacks with automatic weapons, mortar shells, attack helicopters and the F-5 bomber-plane . The fighting forced over 100 000 people to flee their homes.

Six weeks later, most of the refugees is still in their makeshift camps, many with only a plastic cover as protection against the hot sun. Simple holes in the ground some distance away function as toilets. To get water, people have to walk for kilometers. But worst of all is the lack of food.

The children are hungry here, says the nurse Arlene Midtimbang-Sinsuat. The only help we have gotten is 2.5 kilos of rice in ten days. That is not even enough for one meal for a big family! Several local and international aid organizations like the Red Cross and Doctors without Borders are present in the area but the help is badly coordinated and not sufficient. For many of the refugees this is not the first time they have had to leave their homes all of a sudden. Fighting of this kind is something that the civilians here have had to live with for twenty years.

This is the third time in four months that I flee my home, Unas says sadly. The first time was in October and the second time in November last year. When we returned home after 11 days in a refugee camp everything of value in the house was gone. Unas' eyes have tears when she adds: "The soldiers even took my medals that I had won in baseball in school." The conflict between the Christian majority and the Muslim minority in the island of Mindanao in the southern Philippines have deep historic roots, since almost 500 years back. Since the beginning of the seventies there is an armed struggle which aim is independence for the country's Muslims. The part of the country where the Muslims live is the most underdeveloped and neglected: here you find the poorest of the poor people of the Philippines. More or less everyone lives from tilling the soil in traditional ways - with plow and water buffalo. Because of the insecure military situation foreign companies are hesitant to invest in the area, even though both oil and mineral resources have been discovered.

In the beginning of the seventies the MNLF( Moro National Liberation Front) was founded. The guerilla initiated an armed struggle against the government and demanded a separate state for the Muslims. In the fall of 1996, the former president Fidel Ramos negotiated an autonomy agreement with the MNLF leader Nur Misuari. According to the agreement Misuari became the governor over four provinces where many Muslims live, the so-called ARMM-area (Autonomous Region Muslim Mindanao). In the agreement, a substantial amount of money was included that would be used to develop the region, improve the health care, reduce the illiteracy and develop infrastructure. But very little of the development money has reached the Muslim civilian population. Misuari says that the money has not been released - a statement that the government contests. The governor himself is also more and more often criticized - he is accused of spending most of his time travelling around to foreign countries - instead of staying home and see to his people's needs. In the regional capital, Cotabato city, a new luxurious administration building has been constructed - but for the farmers on the countryside not much has been changed.

The people who were critical of the MNLF policy to cooperate with the government founded in 1983 the MILF( Moro Islamic Liberation Front). For a long time the guerilla group was not very strong, but after the autonomy agreement in 1996 the dissatisfaction among former MNLF-followers grew rapidly. The MILF is now counted as the strongest resistance force in the area. According to themselves they can mobilize 120 000 so-called Mujahedeen (freedom fighters). The army estimates the number of guerilla fighters to be 12 000. MILF have 46 camps on the whole island of Mindanao, areas that they control and try to make the government recognize in the peace talks on a low level that has been conducted between the parties since July 1997. The government recently recognized two of the camps, the remaining will be discussed in later negotiations. Ghazali Jaafar, vice chairman of the MILF, doesn't have much hope about a lasting peace.

The government thinks it is peace when there is no fighting, he says. But there will be no peace until the root cause of the conflict is solved, which is the Muslims right to self-determination. That question can not be solved militarily. The reason for the latest fighting is one thing the parties can't agree upon. The government says that the MILF increased its acts of terror like holdups and kidnappings around January 20, which was when the Muslim holy month of fasting was ended. The MILF says that the government spread false rumors about an MILF offensive and initiated the fighting by making an unprovoked attack on one MILF position early in the morning on January 16. According to the MILF, the guerilla did not hit back until January 22 when a massive military offensive took place. Seven extra battalions (about 8000 soldiers) were flown in from different parts of the country. Normally the 150km times 150 km large area is heavily militarized with 10 battalions of soldiers, marines and air force, but now the force was substantially expanded. The population in villages that are located between government and army posts was subjected to massive attacks of varying length and intensity. The attacks lasted from a few hours to three days of bombings. People fled their homes in panic and sought safety in places like schools, or in makeshift camps along the highway where they could be reached by relief missions.

One example is the village of Mapayag where hundreds of people have put up their shelters around the house of the mayor. On February 10, a cease-fire between the government and the MILF was negotiated and a meeting with the purpose to plan regular peace negotiations was decided to take place on March 1st. A top meeting between the chairman of the MILF, Hashim Salamat and President Joseph Estrada was planned for February 27, but it was cancelled in the last minute. The reason was that the parties could not decide about the safety measures surrounding the meeting. Salamat wanted to bring as many safety guards as the President to the meeting, but Estrada allowed him only four unarmed aides. Estrada also did not allow the question of an independent Muslim state to be discussed, which made Salamat quite uninterested to pursue the meeting. Despite the cancelled meeting between the President and the MILF chair, the negotiations about the terms of the cease-fire are going on. The MILF want more than two of its camps recognized before regular peace negotiations can continue.

Six weeks after the fighting started the 100 000 refugees are still in their camps. Their situation is fast deteriorating. The refugees don't dare to return to their villages since the soldiers are still present in their villages. Many houses, schools and mosques have been destroyed as well as crops and animals. As long as the seven extra battalions still are there, no peace is in sight for the hard tried civilian population. When I tell them that the Swedish government is offering the Philippines new high-tech fighter planes, people in the refugee camp Macasampen reacted with fear. We are already terrified when the bomb planes are coming, says Unas. Now we will be twice or trice as afraid when we hear the planes. There is no doubt in my mind that the planes will be used to bomb the Moro people, says MILF leader Jafaar. In that case the Swedish government will be partly responsible for massacres on the Muslim population.