MULTIMEDIA

IN PHOTOS: Marawi in ruins

In an unprecedented move since the war in Marawi started on May 23, the military allowed a few journalists to document the ruins left by five months of intense fighting between government troops and ISIS-influenced terrorists led by the Maute brothers and Isnilon Hapilon of the Abu Sayyaf. 

What greeted the journalists was utter destruction.

Everyone expected that the once-proud city, the only Islamic City in the Philippines and home to the cultural heritage of the Maranaos, would be decimated after the military unleashed its full might to flush out the terrorists. But no one was really prepared to see the ruins up close.

These photographs are just glimpses of what we saw.