2,200 Filipinos in Kuwait want to return home

MANILA: More than 2,200 Filipinos are ready to take up President Rodrigo Duterte’s offer to repatriate workers from Kuwait due to reports of abuse, the labour minister said yesterday.

Duterte asked Philippine Airlines and Cebu Pacific on Friday to provide flights for Filipinos who want to leave Kuwait, after a the body of a Filipino worker was found in a freezer of an abandoned apartment.

“We have been informed that as of Friday there were 2,200plus Filipinos who are willing to go home,” said Labour Secretary Silvestre Bello III.

The airlines had arranged free charter flights, and Bello said almost 500 Filipino workers were due to arrive soon.

The Philippines suspended sending workers to Kuwait last month after reports that abuse by employers had driven several to suicide.

Duterte said on Friday that the suspension would remain indefinitely.

Kuwait’s Deputy Foreign Minister Khaled al-Jarallah expressed “surprise and sorrow” at Duterte’s remarks, saying that legal proceedings had been taken in four suicide cases. The government would help repatriated workers look for jobs, Bello said.

“They will be given a livelihood. We are now in the process of looking for alternative markets. One of them is China and even Russia,” he said.