34 Pinoy workers rescued in Algeria

Two Filipinos working at the Algerian oil field attacked by Islamic militants were wounded while 34 others who were taken hostage were flown safely out of the country, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs ( DFA) said yesterday.

Foreign Affairs spokesman Raul Hernandez said the Philippine embassy in Libya received information from the Japanese embassy in Tripoli that a Filipino worker was able to escape together with a Japanese national from the gas field before the military operation started

but was wounded.

“He is now on his way to Algiers for treatment,” Hernandez said in a press briefing.

According to the embassy, Algerian authorities admitted a few deaths and injuries among the hostages after Algerian military forces attacked the gas plant Thursday.

Hernandez said “no other information and details have been released by the Algerian authorities on the incident.”

The DFA also received information from the Philippine embassy in London that around 34 Filipinos working with different companies in the gas field were evacuated by chartered plane to Palma de Mallorca, Spain.

Sources told The STAR that the 34 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) were among other nationals held hostage in the Algerian gas field.

The DFA withheld the names of the wounded Filipino workers.

Sources said the rescued workers were among those flown in by British Petroleum in two chartered flights, which were initially supposed to fly to London.

But the plane could not land in London due to a snowstorm warning and the inability of the alternate Gatwick airport to accommodate the planes.

“They went to Palma de Mallorca in Spain, not to Parma, Italy as earlier stated. The 34 OFWs might not anymore proceed to London. From Spain, they may be immediately repatriated to the Philippines,” Hernandez said.

He said that Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario has also decided to send a team from the Philippine embassy in Tripoli to Algeria to monitor and assist OFWs there.

Hernandez said the DFA received on Thursday information from two sources in the Philippines who got in touch with their relatives working in the gas field.

“One said her brother together with 15 other Filipinos are inside the gas facility. The other source said her husband and four other Filipinos are working there,” he added.

The embassy, he said, was verifying the information also to determine the number of OFWs there and the conditions of Filipinos who may be held hostage or trapped in the gas field.

Hernandez said the embassy is in contact with the Algerian, British and Japanese embassies in Tripoli as well as with the Algerian foreign ministry and is regularly monitoring the hostage situation.

The DFA said an estimated 2,400 Filipinos work in Algeria.

Hernandez did not confirm press reports that at least two Filipinos were among those killed when the Algerian military launched its rescue operation.

Earlier, he said the brother and wife of two Filipino workers in Algeria had separately told the department that their relatives and 19 other Filipino co-workers had been in the gas field during the hostage taking.

Hernandez said that just before the incident, the two were able to talk to their relatives who were inside Algeria, who told them that they were with other Filipinos.

However, it was not clear what happened to them, he added.

Palace still verifying reports

Meanwhile, Malacañang gave assurance that it was ready to extend assistance to the OFWs who were involved in the hostage-taking incident and that the government’s priority was to secure them.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said the Philippine embassy in Tripoli, with jurisdiction over Algeria, was still verifying the report that there were Filipino casualties in the ongoing military operations in Algeria.

As some governments have expressed their concerns over how Algeria handled the situation, Valte said that at present, the primary concern of the government was to verify the status of the Filipino nationals.

The Office of the Vice President said it is also waiting for an update from the DFA, while the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) gave assurance that they will assist the families of OFWs who may have been killed or injured during the hostage crisis in Algeria.

Bloody siege

On Wednesday, Islamist militants abducted an undetermined number of hostages, including Westerners, at a gas plant in a remote section of Algeria.

Algerian forces launched military operations upon noticing that the kidnappers had started to move their hostages toward a neighboring country.

At least 22 foreign hostages remained unaccounted for as of yesterday, even as Western leaders, who are saying that Algeria failed to consult them, are clamoring for details of the assault.

A local source said the gas plant was still surrounded by Algerian Special Forces and some hostages remained inside.

Thirty hostages, including several Westerners, were killed during the storming on Thursday, the source said, along with at least 11 of their captors, who said they had taken the site as retaliation for French intervention against Islamists in neighboring Mali.

Fourteen Japanese were among those still unaccounted for by the early hours of Friday, their Japanese employer said, while Norwegian energy company Statoil, which runs the Tigantourine gas field with Britain’s BP and Algeria’s national oil company, said eight Norwegian employees were still missing.

An Irish engineer who survived said he saw four jeeps full of hostages blown up by Algerian troops whose commanders said they moved in about 30 hours after the siege began because the gunmen had demanded to be allowed to take their captives abroad.

The crisis posed a serious dilemma for Paris and its allies as French troops attacked the hostage-takers’ al-Qaeda allies in Mali.

It also left question marks over the ability of OPEC-member Algeria to protect vital energy resources and strained its relations with Western powers.

Two Japanese, two Britons and a French national were among at least seven foreigners killed. Eight dead hostages were Algerian. The nationalities of the rest, as well as of perhaps dozens more who escaped, were unclear. Some 600 local Algerian workers survived. A diplomatic source said Britain had not received any information to suggest the hostage situation had ended.

Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has cancelled part of his trip in Southeast Asia, his first overseas trip since taking offce, and will fly home early due to the hostage crisis, Japan’s senior government spokesman said.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that “the action of Algerian forces was regrettable,” adding Tokyo had not been informed of the operation in advance.

Americans, Romanians and an Austrian have also been mentioned by their governments as having been captured by the militants, who call themselves the “Battalion of Blood” and have demanded France end its week-old offensive in Mali.

The bodies of three Egyptians, two Tunisians, two Libyans, a Malian and a Frenchman – all assumed to have been hostage-takers – were found, the security source said.

The group had claimed to have dozens of guerrillas on site and it was unclear whether any militants had managed to escape.

The overall commander, Algerian offcials said, was Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a veteran of Afghanistan in the 1980s and Algeria’s bloody civil war of the 1990s.

He appears not to have been present and has now risen in stature among a host of Saharan Islamists, flush with arms and fighters from chaotic Libya, whom Western powers fear could spread violence far beyond the desert.

Belmokhtar’s group vowed yesterday to carry out more operations, Mauritania’s ANI news agency said, citing a spokesman.