In Cotabato and other parts of south western Mindanao, people desperately need help. Thousands of refugees from the conflict in Zamboanga and Cotabato district live in grim poverty, cultivating land over which they have no tenure. As a result they are physically and psychologically insecure - unable to put down roots and yet with nowhere else to go. Some five thousand people inhabit a district called Tukananes , across the river from the market place. Land is so scarce that these Moro refugees have built a village on stilts in a swamp.
People move about in canoes, or on raised walkways.
Community Aid Abroad helped rebuild these when they were destroyed by a fire, thought to have been lit by wealthy landowners. Women earn a living from selling goods at the main market, men by ferrying people around in boats, mostly dug-out canoes. Child care is a major problem, but the most serious difficulty is the complete lack of safe water. The river has become both life and death for these people. It is their means of transport and their dwelling, their rubbish tip and their laundry, their water supply and their toilet.