OFWs in Libya all set to fly home
Filipino hurt after barrage of rocket attacks in Tripoli on Tuesday
More than 1,000 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families are set to be repatriated from Libya
as violence intensifies in the African state.
As repatriation preparation intensified, the Philippine embassy in Tripoli reported that a Filipino was injured after several residential areas in Tripoli were hit by a rocket barrage on Tuesday.
Chargé d’Affaires Elmer Cato on Wednesday said this was the first time Tripoli proper was targeted since the fighting began early April.
“We have one Filipino wounded in the forehead. He now wants to go home. We hope our kababayan in Tripoli would now realize the danger we have been warning them and would ask us to bring them home,” he reported on his official Twitter account.
“He was injured in the forehead by a small splinter from a shattered window in the house where he is staying. The rocket landed about 300 meters from his place,” a source said.
Labor Secretary Silvestre Bello said they would immediately start the repatriation procedures upon their arrival in Libya on Monday.
A six-member team of labor personnel and welfare officers would also help him in the repatriation, he said.
“If the situation worsens, the number of OFWs to be repatriated may increase but expected to be within manageable level,” Bello said.
Bello said they will prioritize children of OFWs during the repatriation.
Twenty-three Filipino students were ordered to leave the Islamic Call College due to security threats, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office said.
Cato said on a tweet that only 19 of the 1,000 Filipinos in Tripoli wanted to be repatriated.
“Philippine embassy in Libya visited Filipino nurses at the Oil Clinic in Tripoli to tell them about our repatriation offer. There were no takers. They said they would stay. It’s Day 10 of the conflict but only 19 of the 1,000 Filipinos in Tripoli want to go home," he said.
“PhilnLibya (Philippine embassy in Libya) met with some of the remaining Filipino nurses at the University of Tripoli Medical Center. Most have been in Libya since the 1980s. Some are grandmothers now. We came to ask them to go home. They said they will stay,” Cato said in a tweet.
On April 8, the DFA raised the crisis alert to Level 3, which required voluntary repatriation.
Bello said Alert Level 4, which would result in forced repatriation, has not yet been declared.
At present, the repatriation from the conflict-stricken country was still voluntary.
The department’s augmentation team is composed of three administrative staff and three welfare officers. The team will be dispatched to Libya in the event that the alert is elevated to Level 4.
“Bagama’t voluntary repatriation pa rin, siyempre pinaghahandaan namin, na baka iaakyat yung alert level to 4 in which case magkakaroon na ng forced repatriation [Although it is still voluntary repatriation, we are already preparing, just in case the alert will be raised to Level 4, in which case there would be forced repatriation],” said Bello in a radio interview.
"Kung sakaling magkakaroon na ng level 4, magkakaroon ng forced repatriation, eh meron na tayong tao na tutulong doon [In case the alert will be raised to Level 4, we have already our people there to give assistance.]," he added.
The deployment ban of Filipino workers to Libya is still in effect, Bello stressed.
In an earlier interview, the labor chief said that only a few OFWs expressed their desire to avail of the voluntary repatriation.
As of posting, 19 Filipinos have already availed the repatriation offer of the Philippine government, seven of whom are now en route to Manila.
According to latest reports, at least four have been killed while around 20 were wounded after the Southern district of Abu Salim in Tripoli was targeted with rocket fire as the Libyan National Army headed by Commander Khalifa Haftar pushes to seize the capital.
On Tuesday, the Embassy visited the National Heart Center in Tajoura to see how the Filipino nurses there are doing.
"They are nearer the frontlines compared to our nurses in other hospitals in Tripoli but like the rest, they were telling us they are used to the explosions that we could hear from where we were," Cato said.
One of the Filipino nurses who refused to be repatriated reasoned that most of them are still waiting for the release of their salaries that were not remitted due to restrictions in withdrawals and remittances in the country.
"Kung bakit nandito kami, kasi hinihintay namin 'yong matagal nang remittance naming (We are still here because we are waiting for the release of our salaries)," the Filipino nurse said in a video posted by Cato.
The envoy said this is the same problem faced by other Filipino hospital workers in the country.
"We promised to look into the problem so some of them, especially those who have been working in Libya since the early 1980s and who are now in their 60s, could finally go home," he added.