Philippines contacts missing Gadhafi maids

Undersecretary Rafael Seguis. AFP file photo

MANILA, Philippines—Philippine authorities said Sunday they have made contact with four Filipino maids employed by deposed Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s family, who went missing amid the chaos of the rebellion.

A special Philippine envoy to Libya, Undersecretary Rafael Seguis, was able to speak to one of the four maids, the foreign department said in a statement.

“The (women) said they are safe and secure where they are now but signified their desire to leave their employ and come back home as soon as possible,” it said, without elaborating.

It added that the Philippine embassy in Libya will assist in the “safe release” of the four women, whose location was not stated.

A diplomatic source told AFP that releasing further details on the four could jeopardize their safety.

Last week, Vice President Jejomar Binay, who also acts as a special adviser on Filipino overseas workers, reported that the four were missing and had made a tearful call to a relative at home for help in getting out of Libya.

In March, the Philippines said it received reports that four Filipina maids working for a relative of Gadhafi were asking to be allowed to go home, but their employer had refused.

The four were initially employed at a Gadhafi family house in Tripoli, but were later transferred to Sirte, the deposed dictator’s hometown in mid-March, the foreign department said at the time.

The department could not say if the four maids were the same ones reportedly trapped in March.

As of late August, around 1,600 Filipinos were still believed to be in Libya, many of them nurses treating casualties of the months-long uprising against Gadhafi.

About nine million Filipinos work around the world, earning more money in a wide range of skilled and unskilled sectors abroad than they could in their impoverished homeland.