56 OFWs return from Syria

Another 56 overseas Filipino workers arrived Saturday from Syria, bringing to a little over 490 the number of OFWs repatriated by the government from the troubled Middle East country, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) reported.

In a statement, the DFA said the OFWs arrived in two batches at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

“Forty came on Etihad Airlines at 4:15 p.m. while 16 arrived at 10:45 p.m. on Qatar Airlines,” said DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez.

Hernandez said the DFA was “intensifying its repatriation efforts in Syria to ensure our compatriots are out of harm’s way.”

There are some 17,000 OFWs, mostly undocumented domestic workers, in Damascus and other Syrian cities, according to DFA estimates.

On Saturday, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario flew to the Syrian capital to “help in the OFW repatriation” program.

Two weeks ago, the DFA raised the crisis alert level in Syria from 3 to 4 in view of the escalating violence in the country.

Under crisis alert level 4, a mandatory or forced evacuation of OFWs at government expense is implemented.

The foreign office noted the repatriation of Filipinos from Syria was a “continuing effort of the government since April.”

Most of the OFWs in Syria, however, ignored the government’s voluntary repatriation program, prompting the embassy there to intensify efforts to convince them to leave the country.

Earlier, the labor department-attached Philippine Overseas Employment Administration banned the deployment of OFWs to Syria.

An Associated Press report, meanwhile, said the presence of Arab League monitors in Syria has reenergized the antigovernment protest movement, with tens of thousands turning out over the past three days in cities the foreign observers were expected to visit.

The monitors were the first the Syrian government allowed in the country in the nine months of a civilian uprising. They are supposed to ensure compliance by the regime of President Bashar Assad with the terms of the Arab League plan to end the government crackdown on dissent.

More than 5,000 people have died in the uprising since March, according to the United Nations.