12 Evacuated Filipinos from Tripoli Arrive Today
TUNIS 12 March 2020 — Twelve Filipinos who were evacuated from Tripoli on Tuesday, 10 March 2020, will be arriving to the Philippines today in what is considered to be the first interagency repatriation operation carried out from a conflict zone.
The Philippine Embassy in Tripoli said the 12 Filipinos who requested to be repatriated due to the ongoing fighting in the Libyan capital, are scheduled to arrive in Manila via Doha on Thursday afternoon.
Embassy Chargé d’Affaires Elmer G. Cato said the repatriation was carried out jointly by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), the Department of National Defense (DND), the Department of Transportation (DOTr), the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG).
The latest repatriation operation brings to 27 the total number of Filipinos the Embassy has assisted in returning home to the Philippines since the start of the year. Since the current conflict in Tripoli broke out in April, 158 Filipinos have been repatriated by the DFA and the DOLE.
Chargé d’Affaires Cato said this is the first time the DND, the DOTr, the AFP and the PCG participated in repatriating Filipinos from an active conflict area in recent years as most repatriation operations are carried out by the DFA and the DOLE.
In the latest repatriation operation, two AFP officers escorted the five-vehicle convoy that evacuated the 12 Filipinos by land to the Libyan-Tunisian border where they were turned over to other Embassy personnel and members of a PCG liaison group that brought them to Tunis.
The Embassy evacuated the repatriates--who include several senior nurses--by land because flight operations at the Mitiga International Airport in Tripoli were suspended due to the fighting.
The BRP Gabriela Silang, the newest offshore patrol vessel of the Coast Guard, was also placed on standby in the port of Catania in southern Italy. Chargé d’Affaires Cato said the vessel had instructions to proceed to the Libyan coast should the convoy encounter problems along the way and is forced to turn back.
The vessel was en route to Manila early this year but was directed to stay in Malta to support possible evacuation of Filipinos from Tripoli where an almost year-long conflict has been raging.
The Embassy opted to proceed to the Tunisian border, about 160 kilometers from Tripoli, after it monitored some fighting along the route to the Misrata International Airport some 200 kilometers away.
“Fortunately, everything went according to plan despite the rising tensions we monitored in certain areas along the way to the border,” Chargé d’Affaires Cato said.
“We are glad our 12 kababayan will soon be reunited with their loved ones back home.” END
