22 female OFWs from Syria to arrive Friday in PH—DFA

MANILA, Philippines—Twenty-two more female overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from Syria were repatriated by the Philippine Embassy in Damascus, and were scheduled to arrive Friday in three separate flights, the Department of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The OFWs will arrive via Philippine Airlines flight scheduled to land at 6:20 p.m. and via Emirates Airlines flights landing at 3:55 p.m. and at 9:55 p.m.

The repatriation of the OFWs continued “as the world awaits the April 10 cease-fire deadline set by the Syrian Government and the United Nations (UN) Special Envoy Kofi Annan,” the DFA said.

To date, there were 1,243 OFWs repatriated from the strife-torn Syria, it added.

The repatriates, who were mostly from Damascus, sought refuge at the Embassy’s halfway house while Embassy officials negotiated with their employers and Syrian authorities for the issuance of exit visas, the DFA said.

“We are hoping that the UN-brokered cease-fire agreement will be honored by all parties. Nevertheless, we intend to continue with the mandatory repatriation of Filipinos while we assess the security situation in Syria,” DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez said.

The plane tickets of the latest batch of repatriates were paid for by the International Organization for Migration.

On December 2011, the Philippine government raised an alert level 4 to Syria, which required the mandatory evacuation of all Filipinos in Syria amid the increasing violence between government and opposition forces.

Meanwhile, the DFA also continued to urge the next-of-kin OFWs in Syria to provide the Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (DFA-OUMWA) with relevant information regarding their relatives by calling (02) 834-3245 or (02) 834-3240.