21 OFWs come back from Tripoli as DFA charters ship for 13,000 Pinoys in Libya
By CECIL MORELLA, Agence
France-PresseAugust 2, 2014 9:47pm
Tags: Libya
A small group of
overseas Filipino workers flew home from strife-torn Libya on Saturday,
grateful to have escaped the conflict but anxious about bleak job prospects in
their own country.
The 21 Filipinos, red-eyed and weary from lack of sleep and a long journey, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport using tickets paid for by the Philippine government, which has ordered a mandatory evacuation of its 13,000 nationals from the North African nation.
The 21 Filipinos, red-eyed and weary from lack of sleep and a long journey, arrived at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport using tickets paid for by the Philippine government, which has ordered a mandatory evacuation of its 13,000 nationals from the North African nation.
"It was difficult.
There were explosions night and day," oil pipeline welder Michael Antalan,
37, told AFP.
Their Libyan company
stopped work on July 20 and allowed them to seek refuge in the embassy in
Tripoli, about two hours' drive away.
Rose Biros, 33, a
domestic worker in Tripoli, and husband Abraham, the family cook and also 33,
sought permission to return home after a bullet slammed into a terrace wall of
their employer's home on July 20.
"At first he
refused, insisting it was safe to stay. How can it be safe when there were
stray bullets flying around? After three days he finally let us go," she
told AFP.
About 10 million
Filipinos work around the world, earning more money than they could in their
struggling homeland.
The Philippine
government imposed a travel ban on Libya on May 30, when it also warned
Filipinos there to leave.
The Department of
Foreign Affairs then issued a mandatory evacuation order last month following
the beheading of a Filipino construction worker in the eastern port of
Benghazi.
A Filipina nurse was
also abducted and gang-raped in Tripoli on Wednesday.
Urgent appeal
The Department of
Foreign Affairs said only about 800 from Libya have so far returned to the
Philippines.
A ship chartered by
Manila is set to sail from Malta in the coming days to pick up Filipinos from
Benghazi, Misrata and possibly Tripoli, the DFA said Saturday.
"The (Department of
Foreign Affairs) is appealing with urgency to those who have not made the
decision to be repatriated to please consider doing so as the avenues of
repatriation are quickly diminishing," the statement said.
Foreign Secretary Albert
del Rosario, in neighboring Tunisia to coordinate the evacuation, fears the sea
route "may be the only means of repatriation", it said.
He said the
Tunisia-Libya border crossing was closed on Friday following a shooting
incident, while a crossing to Egypt has been closed for months.
Officials have said
ships would be able to carry about 1,500 people at a time.
The Filipinos who flew
home Saturday all said they had yet to recoup expenses they incurred in
securing their Libyan jobs.
"I won't be going
back there, it's too dangerous," said Antalan, whose wife works as a maid
in Dubai while their five-year-old daughter stays with his parents in Mayantoc,
a town north of Manila.
"However I need to
find a job in another country. We can't really afford to have only one spouse
working," he said, adding he would never find a local employer willing to
pay the $1,000 a month he was earning in Libya.
Abraham Biros said he
would settle for 20,000 pesos ($460) a month -- what he earned in Libya -- if
he could find a job near their home in Naic, a coastal town just south of
Manila.
The Philippines
previously evacuated its nationals from Libya in 2011 during the violent chaos
leading to the toppling of the late dictator Moamer Kadhafi.
However, about 1,600
Filipinos, mostly doctors and nurses, elected to stay throughout that upheaval.
The Philippines lifted a
travel ban to Libya in 2012, but re-imposed it in May. — Agence France-
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