How the Marawi Suicide Squad carry out the world’s worst job

THEY’RE named after a Hollywood superhero squad but there is nothing glamorous about their job that’s one of the worst in the world. WARNING: Graphic

WARNING: Story contains graphic content that may upset readers.

EXCLUSIVE

THERE’S a lot that keeps Saripada Lucman Pacasum awake, but the image of the decomposed bodies of children is high among his list of sleepless nights.

For more than two months the 39-year-old former bank worker has been leading a team of 30 men and women on rescue and recovery missions into war-torn Marawi.

There is more recovery than rescues now, bodies of civilians either floating downstream from the intense fighting in the southern Filipino province or dressed in orange jumpsuits and shot or decapitated by the ISIS-backed rebels, killed for the cameras as a rallying call for others to join the jihad on Christians.

But it’s the children that concern him the most.

“I don’t know how we cope, it’s very difficult, the scene sticks in my head,” the worker said shortly after he loaded another half a dozen bodies on to the back of a pick-up truck.

MORE: Qantas duty free booze ban on flights to fight terror

MORE: Australian Diggers set to help in new IS war front

The Marawi Suicide Squad holding the body of a man who was accidentally shot and killed by the Philippine army. Picture: Gary Ramage

“Especially when you get the kids, I have kids as well, I have two, very hard very hard but nobody else is going to do it so we have to do it. One of my big fears though is that I know I will find a friend a close relative or someone I know. So far none but still to see civilian casualties of this war that could have been prevented is very disturbing for everyone.”

Boss of the squad Saripada Luccman Pacasum and his cousin Jihad Pimping. Picture: Gary Ramage

He and his volunteers, fishermen, farmers and students, are known as the ‘white helmets’ because of the plastic construction site hats they wear. A sign on the door of their one-room office that doubles as a dorm in a liberated section of Marawi is more relevant though. It says “Suicide Squad” as each day they go out and collect bodies as bullets whiz about their heads or they are forced to negotiate with the ISIS rebels to enter a certain city section.

The small group of volunteers risk their lives to enter Mawari to rescue trapped civilians and also recover the bodies. Picture: Gary Ramage

“Yes like the movie ‘Suicide Squad — No Fear’ because that’s what we have, no fear,” his cousin and fellow worker Jihad Pimping, 33, said of the superhero movie of the same name released last year and starring Australian actress Margot Robbie and Will Smith.

It’s a daily routine; the call comes in and Pacasum asks for volunteers and they don their hats and rubber gloves and drive into the war zone.

Pimping said normally they dealt with tsunamis, earth quakes, floods and fires but being shot at was something new.

He said the whole team was from Marawi and that made things easier in a way.

Humans remains are recovered by a team from the Suicide Squad in Mawari city. Picture: Gary Ramage

“We are all volunteers, we are native to Marawi and I know my terrain, because we live here. We motivate ourselves to save lives and watch Marawi come back.

“We saved many lives too in the middle of ISIS. There was ISIS and us. We talked to them, we went there to save some old men, in and out, there was no threat to us but the army now stop us going in. We were safe because ISIS people know Muslim people will be rescued out of area.

The volunteers who are part of the Suicide Squad. Picture: Gary Ramage

We are all Muslim since day 1, some of the ISIS are friends and we don’t know if their aim is ISIS but they respect us. ISIS proper are not from here but another province but all the province respect us because they know us and don’t want to touch us.”

Mr Pacasum said after the war is over they have no idea where they will go since like hundreds of other locals, their houses have been destroyed.

“We share the same stories as those we rescue or retrieve, but we go on, we go on, someone has to do this job,” he said.

Originally published as How the Marawi Suicide Squad carry out the world’s worst job