AFP
MANILA
AN AVERAGE of 44 people are being killed each day in Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's war on crime, according to police data released Tuesday that showed the death toll surging to nearly 3,000.
The new figures came after Duterte vowed on Monday to defy a wave of international condemnation and continue killing until every drug trafficker in the Philippines was dead.
"More people will be killed, plenty will be killed until the last pusher is out of the streets," said Duterte, who scored a landslide election victory in May largely on his promise to fight crime.
"Until the (last) drug manufacturer is killed, we will continue."
Police have killed 1,033 in anti-drug operations since Duterte was sworn into office just over two months ago, according to the national police update on Tuesday.
Another 1,894 have died in unexplained deaths, police said, which rights groups believe are largely due to out-of-control security forces and hired assassins.
The total of 2,927 is over 500 higher than the figure released by police on Sunday, and equates to an average of 44 a day since Duterte took office on June 30.
US President Barack Obama was planning to raise concerns about the war on crime with Duterte at a meeting in Laos on Tuesday afternoon.
But Obama cancelled the meeting after Duterte warned he would not be lectured to, and branded the US president a"son of a whore".