Two US citizens were among 19 people killed in a raid on an alleged communist stronghold in the Philippines that has sparked a probe by the country’s rights commission, a government task force said.

More than 300 residents in the Toboso municipality of Negros Island fled their homes on April 19 as gunfire rang out in the remote sugar cane-farming region, the municipal disaster management office told reporters last week.

The number of people killed in the firefight, in which only one soldier was wounded, sparked calls for an investigation.

The two Americans, identified as Lyle Prijoles and Kai Dana-Rene Sorem, arrived in Negros Occidental province about a month before they were killed, the task force said in a statement late Saturday.

“The National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict [NTF-ELCAC] notes with serious concern the confirmation that a second American national was among those killed in the April 19, 2026, armed encounter,” the statement said.

“This brings to two the number of US citizens … who died in the same incident,” it added, identifying all 19 killed as “combatant” members of the New People’s Army (NPA), which has been fighting a long-running insurgency for nearly 60 years.

Prijoles’ name had been released shortly after the clash.