Shadowy assassins are still killing poor Filipinos, despite a police withdrawal from Rodrigo Duterte's deadly drug war, a rights group said Friday, as Manila filed criminal charges against the president's top critic.
Duterte ordered the police to step back at the end of January after a seven-month campaign that had left 6,485 people dead, many in unexplained circumstances.
The latest tally given to AFP on Friday showed an extra 146 people had died since the January 31 stand-down was ordered, which rights groups said showed extrajudicial killings were continuing.
"The targets are still the same, as far as we are concerned: people linked to drugs and who live in poor neighbourhoods," Wilnor Papa, campaign official for the Philippine branch of Amnesty International, told AFP.