(IRIN) – Two months after renegade Muslim militants opposed to efforts by the Philippine government to end a decades-long rebellion laid siege to the southern city of Zamboanga, traumatized children are learning to laugh again. The Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) attacked several villages in Zamboanga city, a major port in the Mindanao region that is home to about a million people. The attack was apparently carried out to sabotage peace talks between the government and a splinter group aimed at putting a stop to decades of insurgency that has left an estimated 150,000 people dead and plunged the mineral-rich south into deep poverty. 

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