DFA racing to get OFWs out of Syria
Syrians hold a large poster depicting Syria's President Bashar Assad during a rally in Damascus, Syria. AP
The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is “intensifying its repatriation efforts in Syria to ensure our compatriots are out of harm’s way.”
This after it repatriated 56 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the troubled country on Saturday. The OFWs, all women, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport on a Qatar Airways flight at 4:30 p.m.
They were accompanied by Foreign Undersecretary Esteban Conejos.
According to the DFA, seven of the women were retrieved from Homs, one of the four flash points in Syria.
Salma Mastulah, 33, who worked as a domestic helper, vowed never to return to the country. She said that while the situation where she worked was manageable, her male employer maltreated her.
“I was practically working for all his relatives. He took me to the different houses of his relatives. One time, he hit me so I was forced to fight back,” she told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
There are some 17,000 OFWs, mostly undocumented domestic workers, in Damascus and other Syrian cities, according to DFA estimates.
Last week, Foreign Secretary Albert del Rosario flew to the Syrian capital to “help in the OFW repatriation” program.
The DFA earlier raised the crisis alert level in Syria from 3 to 4 in view of the escalating violence.
Under level 4, a mandatory or forced evacuation of OFWs at the government’s expense is implemented.
The foreign office noted the repatriation of Filipinos from Syria was a “continuing effort of the government since April.”
