Over 124,000 overseas Filipinos flown home amid COVID-19 pandemic — DFA

Repatriated Overseas Filipino Workers or OFWs arrive at an airport after being allowed to go home following weeks of quarantine amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Pasay City, Metro Manila, Philippines May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez – RC2BWG9A3EKK

MANILA, Philippines — A total of 124,717 overseas Filipinos have so far been repatriated by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the agency reported late Saturday.

In a statement, the DFA said that  39.8 percent or 49,655 of the repatriated Filipinos are sea-based while 60.2 percent or  75,062 are land-based.

According to the DFA, the number of Filipino repatriates breached the 124,000 mark after 8,924 overseas Filipinos were flown home this week.

A total of 3,660 overseas Filipinos arrived in the Philippines this week from the United Arab Emirates via 13 special commercial repatriation flights and one DFA-chartered flight.

The DFA also welcomed the return of 2,349 Filipino seafarers from Bangladesh, Italy, Spain, Japan, Singapore, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago.

“Through the help of its various Foreign Service Posts and the Filipino community abroad, the DFA was able to facilitate the repatriation of stranded overseas Filipinos from remote locations such as Mongolia, Palau, and the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean,” the DFA also said.

Moreover, the DFA said it is closely working with the Philippine embassies in Beirut and Tehran to immediately repatriate distressed Filipino nationals in Lebanon and Uzbekistan, respectively.

“The DFA remains unwavering in its commitment to bringing home our distressed nationals abroad wherever they are in the world,” it added.

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