Clarita Gragasin, 61, traveled to the Koronadal market on May 10, 2003. She was sitting in a rickshaw tricycle when a bomb detonated about five meters from her. Shrapnel from the bomb killed her instantly. ? 2006 John Sifton/Human Rights Watch
Since January 2000, radical armed Islamist groups in the Philippines have carried out over 40 major bombings against civilians and civilian property, mostly in the south of the country. They have killed civilians indiscriminately -- Christians and Muslims, men and women, parents and children -- and left behind orphans, widows, and widowers. Hundreds of other victims have suffered severe wounds, burns, and lost limbs. In all, the bombings and other attacks have caused over 1,700 casualties in the last seven years, more than the number of people killed and injured in bombing attacks during the same period in neighboring Indonesia (including the 2002 Bali bombings), and considerably more than the number of those killed and injured in bombings in Morocco, Spain, Turkey, or Britain.
