DFA-OUMWA Welcomes 14 Repatriates from Gaza

A group from the DFA-Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (DFA-OUMWA), led by Special Assistant Charleson C. Hermosura, welcomes the latest batch of repatriates from Gaza. (Photo by DFA-OUMWA)

PASAY 21 February 2024 - The DFA Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs (DFA-OUMWA) welcomed 14 repatriates who arrived today in the Philippines from Gaza.

The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) and the Manila office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) joined the DFA-OUMWA in welcoming the repatriates.

“We are pleased to know that they safely arrived today in the Philippines,” says Undersecretary for Migrant Workers’ Affairs Eduardo José A. de Vega. “As with our past repatriates from Gaza, the DFA, through the Philippine Embassy in Cairo, Egypt provided welfare assistance to the families who arrived today. We hope that it can help them start over.”

This is the eighth repatriation that the DFA-OUMWA facilitated since the Hamas group’s attacks on the Gaza envelope on 7 October 2023, and the subsequent conflict in Gaza between the said group and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The DFA-OUMWA coordinated the repatriation with the Philippine Embassies in Cairo, Amman (Jordan), and Doha (Qatar).

“Welcoming the repatriates is the last part of the DFA-OUMWA’s assistance regularly extended to distressed Filipinos and their families arriving from conflict areas. In a way, we are assuring them that they are now safe in the Philippines,” de Vega said. END

A member of the DFA-OUMWA group listens as one of the repatriates narrates the situation that she and her family faced in Gaza. (Photo by DFA-OUMWA)