MANILA: A hostage drama that unfolded at a primary school in the southern Philippines on Wednesday has been resolved, a military spokesman said, and the Islamist militants who had held people captive had withdrawn with no reports of casualties.
"It's already resolved," Brigadier General Restituto Padilla told reporters. "They've withdrawn, they are no longer there. The school area is again safe."
However, Padilla also said the military was investigating whether five civilians were still being held by the militants. He said no children had been taken hostage.
Earlier, a spokesman for the militant group said they had taken civilians to a safe place after a gunfight erupted with troops and did not intend to hold them.
Pro-Islamic State militants stormed a school in the southern Philippines, on the same island where fighting between government troops and Islamists has entered its fifth week.
A police report said about 300 armed men, among them members of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF), stormed a school in Pigcawayan town in North Cotabato province on Mindanao island and were holding some students captive.
Members of the BIFF were engaged in a gunbattle with the military, Chief Inspector Realan Mamon, the police chief at Pigcawayan, said in a radio interview.
Pigcawayan is 190 km (120 miles) south of Marawi City, where BIFF militants, along with fighters from other groups allied to Islamic State, have been holed up and fighting thePhilippines military since May 23.