312 Filipino Workers from Ethiopia Return Home to the Philippines

Filipino workers at the Addis Ababa International Airport (Photo courtesy of Yapi Merkezi)

CAIRO 29 April 2020 — A total of 312 Filipino workers in Kombulcha, Ethiopia are returning home via Qatar Airways to the Philippines on 29 April 2020. They are employed by Yapı Merkezi, Inc., a Turkish company specializing in design and construction of buildings, heavy construction and railway projects.

The OFWs left Kombulcha for Addis Ababa on the evening of 27 April 2020 for their flight to Doha, and then for their onward flight to Manila

The successful repatriation of the said Filipino workers was made possible by the organization and funding of Yapi Merkezi and its close cooperation with the Philippine Embassy in Egypt who assisted in the documentation and coordination with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Manila.

Before their repatriation, the Filipinos work as machine operators, skilled workers and engineers in the Awash- Kombulcha-Hara Gebaya (AKH) Railway Project in Ahmara Region in northern Ethiopia. The first group of thirty (30) Filipinos arrived in the AKH construction site in April 2017.

Yapi Merkezi will be rehiring the Filipino workers when the COVID-19 pandemic ends. END

Filipino workers at the Addis Ababa International Airport (Photo courtesy of Yapi Merkezi)

Health screening at the airport (Photo by Yapi Merkezi)

For more information, visit https://www.cairope.dfa.gov.ph or https://www.facebook.com/PHinEgypt/.