MANILA, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines began on Wednesday the repatriation of Filipino workers from the Middle East with the arrival of 13 distressed Filipinos amid the rising tensions between the United States and Iran.
Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) spokesperson and Foreign Assistant Secretary Eduardo Menez said the DFA, through the Philippine Embassy to Iraq, brought home two groups coming from Baghdad and Erbil in Iraq.
He said the first group was from Baghdad, which comprises seven adults and two children, landed at Manila's international airport. He said the nine was supposed to arrive on Tuesday, but was held by Iraqi immigration officials at the Baghdad International Airport for allegations of visa issues.
Menez said the other four adults coming from Erbil, a city located north of Baghdad, form the second group. Both groups traveled to Manila via Doha, Qatar, he added.
Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin, has earlier announced that the DFA will do all that needs to be done to get Filipinos out of harm's way.
He also announced that the DFA is deploying Rapid Response Teams to the Middle East, especially to Iraq and Iran, to help facilitate the repatriation of Filipinos in the region.
"The repatriates (that arrived on Wednesday) comprise the first batch of Filipinos coming home after the government ordered mandatory repatriation," the country's Foreign Undersecretary for Migrant Workers' Affairs Sarah Lou Arriola said.
"More Filipinos from affected areas are expected to come home in the coming weeks," Arriola added.
Alert level 4 or mandatory repatriation of Filipinos in Iraq was raised on January 8, 2020 due to growing security threats in the Middle East.
The DFA earlier said that Iraq is home to 450 undocumented and 1,190 documented Filipinos. "More than half are found in the relatively safer Kurdistan region and around 847 in the Baghdad area."
