Philippines - April 2026

On 19 April, 19 people were killed during a military operation in Toboso, Negros Occidental. The military said all were members of the New People’s Army, a communist insurgent group, while civil society groups identified nine as civilians, including a journalist, two university students and minors. More than 100 families were reportedly displaced. The Commission on Human Rights opened an independent investigation because of conflicting accounts about who was killed and how the deaths occurred. Following a subsequent civil society fact-finding mission, Philippine human rights alliance Karapatan described the incident as ‘the biggest single mass casualty involving international humanitarian law violations’ that it had documented in recent years. The incident occurred amid the country’s continuing internal conflict.

Sources:  UNICEF, Commission of Human Rights, Rappler, Bulatat