The Philippine government's 35-year confrontation with Muslim separatists on the southern island of Mindanao and a second conflict with communist insurgents across the country have caused 160,000 deaths and displaced up to 2 million people.

• 120,000 still uprooted by fighting
• More than 35 percent of population live in poverty
• Mindanao situation attracts Islamic extremists

The Mindanao conflict first flared in the 1960s when the Muslim minority - known as the Moros - launched an armed struggle for their ancestral homeland in the south.

But over the years, the Moro campaign for self-rule has become only one of several sources of bloodshed on Mindanao. These include a long Maoist insurgency, violence linked to militant Islamist groups with pan-Asian aspirations, bloody ethnic vendettas, clan wars and banditry.

Today more than 120,000 people remain uprooted by the fighting, an estimate considered to be conservative.

Significant progress has been made in peace negotiations with the two main Muslim rebel organisations, but Mindanao and neighbouring islands remain an attractive refuge for jihadist groups.

Politics and religion aside, much of the violence is fuelled by deep poverty rooted in decades of under-investment.

POPULATION
Philippines (2006)	84.5 million (U.N.)
Mindanao island group	16 million (U.S. Institute of Peace)
RELIGION
Muslim population among Mindanao island group	20 percent (U.S. Institute of Peace)
REFUGEES AND DISPLACEMENT
People displaced in Mindanao (Jan-May 2007)	95,600-115,600 (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre)
Refugees abroad (2005)	465 (UNHCR)
CONFLICT
Number killed in Moro insurgency	120,000 (UNDP)
Number killed in communist insurgency	40,000 (UNDP)