‘We are not hiding anything’: two dead in mistaken identity shooting by Philippine police
Government figures show that almost 4,000 ‘drug personalities’ have been killed by government forces since mid-2016
Philippine police have killed two people, including a woman on her way to hospital, after mistaking them for gunmen, authorities said on Friday, the latest deaths at the hands of law enforcement under President Rodrigo Duterte.
The incident occurred on Thursday night when police were called to a Manila suburb following an earlier shooting during an argument between residents.
But they mistakenly opened fire on a van that they thought was carrying the gunman but which in fact was taking a woman injured in the incident to hospital, said Manila police chief director Oscar Albayalde.
The wounded woman later died and one of her companions in the van was also killed while two others were wounded, he told reporters.
“I find no excuse [for] this unfortunate event that has caused the death of two individuals and the wounding of two others,” Albayalde said in a statement.
