Duterte's Philippines drug war death toll rises above 5,000
Enforcement agency says 5,050 lives lost in president’s war on drugs, mostly at police hands
The Guardian (UK)
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Derrick Carreon, a spokesman for the Philippine drug enforcement agency (PDEA), said that, according to official figures, between July 2016 and the end of November this year, 5,050 lives were lost, mostly at the hands of the police. The official toll falls well short of estimates given by human rights groups and campaigners for victims, which vary from 12,000 to 20,000. Many of the undocumented killings, rights groups say, were carried out by “death squads” and unofficial militias. Last week, Chito Gascon, the chairman of the Philippine commission on human rights, said the toll could be as high as 27,000, though he emphasised that investigating the deaths was complex because police withheld records on anti-drug operations.
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