19 November 2013 – The Philippine Embassies in Damascus, Syria (Damascus PE) and Beirut, Lebanon (Beirut PE) with the support of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) once again facilitated the successful repatriation to the Philippines of a total of 92 Filipinos from Syria bringing the total number of repatriates to 5,003.
The IOM provided the airfare, land transportation and meals of the repatriates, who were brought to Lebanon in two batches, a group of 28 on November 12 and a group of 64 on November 13.
In these two separate cross-border repatriation operations, Embassy teams along with representatives of IOM were on hand at the General Security (Lebanese Immigration) at the Masna’a border crossing where they received the repatriates from the teams of Damascus PE and IOM-Damascus. Beirut PE’s Vice Consul Dennis John Briones and Labor Attaché Bulyok Nilong assisted the first batch of 28 Filipinos who crossed the Syrian-Lebanese border on November 12, while Vice Consul Rona Beth Goce and Assistance-to-Nationals (ATN) officer Dexter Macaraeg assisted the second batch at the Masna’a border on November 13.
From the Masna’a border, the first batch of Filipinos made a brief stop at the Embassy in Beirut before proceeding to the airport. Cultural Officer Gladys Perey and the Embassy’s General Utility Man Khalaf Hussein assisted the group at the Embassy and airport. The second batch of 64 Filipinos were brought straight from the border to the airport.
Separate teams from the Embassy and IOM assisted the two batches of repatriates at the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut before their respective flights to the Philippines. Vice Consul Goce and Information Officer Edwin Batallones with an IOM staff assisted the 28 Filipinos, which left Beirut in the evening of November 12, while Vice Consul Briones and Protocol Officer Antonio Cruz with an IOM staff assisted the 64 Filipinos, who left past midnight on November 14.
The first batch of 28 Filipinos, which included a minor, arrived in Manila on November 13, while the second batch of 64 Filipinos arrived on November 14.
These were the 38th and 39th cross-border operations undertaken by the two Embassies. With the arrival of the 92 Filipinos, a total of 1,980 Filipinos have been repatriated from Syria via Lebanon. END