OFWs trickle out of Libya

Another 10 overseas Filipino workers have managed to flee Libya on the MV Azzurra, a ferry chartered by the Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM), according to the Philippine Embassy in Tripoli.

In a report to the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila, the embassy said eight of the OFWs were medical staff of a hospital in Esbea which is 45 kilometers south of the Libyan capital.

On Sunday night, “Foreign Undersecretary Rafael Seguis together with embassy officials were able to successfully fetch the OFWs from the hospital… they are now on board the MV Azzurra en route to Benghazi,” said DFA spokesperson Raul Hernandez.

From Benghazi, the OFWs will travel by land to the Egyptian border where they will be met by personnel from the Philippine Embassy in Cairo and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (Owwa). From Cairo, the repatriates will take commercial flights to Manila.

Hernandez said that last Saturday, Seguis and the embassy team “made a bold attempt to pick up OFWs” from their workplaces outside Tripoli.

“But when they reached the edge of town, they were advised by the rebels to turn back for fear they would get hurt in the heavy fighting taking place,” he said.

Hernandez said Seguis and the embassy staff would continue to make the rounds of hospitals and other workplaces of OFWs.

In Manila, the DFA’s office for migrant workers’ affairs has set up the following telephone numbers for the families of Filipinos based in Damascus and other parts of Syria hosting OFWs: 8343425 and 8343240.

In the Syrian capital, the Philippine embassy’s hotline is 00-963-116-132626.