Student protesters lighting up candles on Tuesday (Dec 10) to call on the government to end martial law in Mindanao province as they mark the anniversary of the siege by Islamic State group-aligned militants of Marawi city in southern Philippine. - AP
MANILA: President Rodrigo Duterte will lift martial law in the southern Philippines by year's end, his spokesman said Tuesday (Dec 10), more than two years after it was imposed in an attempt to stop the Islamic State group gaining a foothold there.
Duterte put the Mindanao region under military rule in May 2017, hours after gunmen flying the black IS flag seized the mainly Muslim city of Marawi, sparking a five-month battle that left 1,200 people dead.
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