Only 74 OFWs want to return from Iraq

From an initial headcount of 100, only 74 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) are now waiting to be repatriated from strife-torn Iraq, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said yesterday.

Special envoy to the Middle East Roy Cimatu said 100 OFWs were supposed to return home, but only 94 later went to Baghdad and boarded a chartered plane bound for Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The trip had been financed by their contractor, Prime Projects International, which is based in Dubai.

DFA spokeswoman Julia Heidemann noted that some of these 94 OFWs who left Iraq decided to stay in Dubai after hearing of some job openings in the city.

She added that it is still uncertain whether all 74 OFWs waiting for repatriation will actually return to Manila because several of them may change their mind at the last minute.

Last week, some 600 Filipino workers based in a United States-run military camp in Balad, north of Baghdad, requested repatriation when a second Filipino was killed in an attack by Iraqi rebels.

The 600 workers were based in Camp Anaconda, where a mortar exploded right in the middle of the compound, killing warehouse worker Raymond Natividad and wounding four other OFWs.

The first Filipino fatality in Iraq was Rodrigo Reyes, who was working as a truck driver in Kuwait when he was killed in an ambush by insurgents last month. He was part of a convoy that was attacked on the Baghdad-Kuwait road after delivering supplies to Camp Anaconda. — with AFP