DFA pleads to Filipinos in Yemen: Come home, conflict to worsen
PRESSED for time, the Philippine government has evacuated 99 Filipino citizens in Yemen as the fierce fighting continued in the Middle East country.
Assistant Secretary Charles Jose, the Department of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, renewed on Monday the government’s appeal to around 400 nationals who have apparently opted to stay in Yemen despite the conflict to avail of the government’s repatriation offer.
Yemen has been battered by the attacks of the rebels and airstrikes led by the Saudi Arabia forces.
A crisis management team led by Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Ezzedin Tago, along with officials and personnel from the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh and the Philippine consulate general in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia plucked 54 men, 43 women and two infants out of Yemen.
The group, traveling on a convoy of two buses, left the western Yemeni city of Hodeidah at 7 a.m. (Saudi time) on Sunday and arrived at the Tuwal border crossing of Saudi Arabia four hours later on the same day.
On Monday, five buses carrying 243 Filipinos departed Sana’a, the capital of Yemen, for a six-hour travel to the Yemen border via Hodeidah.
As with other countries with foreign nationals in Yemen, the Philippines is pressed for time to bring its citizens to safety with the Shia Houthi rebels making gains in Aden despite the Saudi-led air strikes.
“The window to take them out in Yemen is getting smaller,” Jose said in a press briefing, noting that international airports in Yemen had been shut down in the last few months.
The journey to the border was generally safe according to the DFA but the group had to pass through several checkpoints along the 215-kilometer route.
As of press time, government officials are assisting evacuees in Jizan in Saudi Arabia by providing them food and accommodation as well as arranging their onward travel to the Philippines.
“We don’t know if the 215-kilometer route to the border will still be safe to transport them later on,” Jose said.
He said the CMT reported that the second batch of evacuees could be the last citing the present dangers along the route.
“It is becoming impossible to take them out of Yemen,” Jose said.
Out of the 800 Filipino nationals living and working in Yemen, the Philippines had brought to safety almost half of them.
“Their reason for staying behind is mostly economic. Their concern is they would not find work in the Philippines with wages comparable to what they are getting in Yemen,” Jose said.
According to the Department of Labor and Employment, most of the Filipinos in Yemen work as nurses, household service workers, engineers, technicians and mechanics.
The Philippines has raised Alert Level 3 in Yemen, which calls for voluntary repatriation and all new deployments of Filipino workers or those returning to work from their vacation stopped from returning to Yemen.
The DFA said Filipinos who have remained undecided about leaving Yemen should leave now and join the land evacuation by contacting CMT personnel in Movenpick Hotel Sana’a.
Filipino nationals in Yemen may contact the CMT personnel through their phone numbers +967 73 0194 165 and +967 73 742 6292 and email address [email protected] , the DFA said.
Last week, the DFA also took out advertisements in Filipino tabloid newspapers, calling on the families of overseas Filipino workers in Yemen and another war-torn country Libya to urge their loved ones to go home. AU
