37 Filipinos to arrive from Syria—DFA

Thirty-seven Filipinos in Syria will be repatriated by the government in the next two days, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) announced Sunday.

This would bring to 1,771 the total number of Philippine nationals to be evacuated from the strife-torn Middle East country by a team led by the DFA. The other team members belong to the Department of Labor and Employment and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration.

Citing a report of the Philippine Embassy in Damascus, the DFA said 27 repatriates, all overseas Filipinos workers (OFWs), are expected to arrive at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport’s Terminal 1 at 10:10 p.m. today on board Emirates Airlines flight EK 334.

In a statement, the DFA said 10 more Filipinos, including four children aged 8 to 15, are due to arrive in Manila tomorrow night.

The embassy in the Syrian capital is “sustaining its efforts to repatriate more Filipinos as violence continues in Syria,” said the foreign office.

Earlier, the DFA said it would “continue the repatriation operations for as long as necessary in line with the third pillar of Philippine foreign policy—the protection of Filipinos overseas.”

The embassy said crisis alert level 4 (mandatory evacuation of OFWs), which the agency declared in December, is still in force in Syria.

Nearly 17,000 people have been killed in the Syrian uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad.