Pinoys recount ordeal in Algeria

MANILA, Philippines - Although no greenhorn at the Algerian oil fields, 46-year-old Cesar Zacarias Anunciado Vistal found that returning to work in North Africa could be a harrowing experience.

Vistal, a native of Bohol and resident of New Malicbug, Davao Oriental, left Manila with another Filipino to work for Japan Gas Corp. last Jan. 7.

His wife Rowena Vicillas Vistal, 38, told The STAR that her husband returned to Algeria as planning engineer of British Petroleum at the In Amenas gas complex. He worked at the oil field for Orascom in 2009 and 2010.

Rowena said she received an e-mail from her husband but he did not mention about the attack by Islamic militants.

Rowena said she got worried after receiving an e-mail from Petro Plan, the London-based agency that hired her husband, assuring her that they would update her on the situation but did not indicate if he was among the hostages.

On Friday evening, Rowena said her husband called her, saying he was rescued from his room at the workers’ accommodation and brought to a security office at In Amenas.

The Filipino engineer called his wife again yesterday and said he was with the two groups of Filipinos that arrived in Germany with the help of US forces. He said they were waiting for their plane tickets to return to the country.

Rowena said her husband told her that the hostage takers knocked on the door of every room and seized its occupants. She said Cesar was spared because he did not open the door.

Rowena said her husband survived the two-day ordeal without electricity. “Kumain lang sya ng baon nya na Skyflakes at nuts at kaunting tubig (He just ate crackers and nuts and had some water),” she said, adding that the militants were not able to enter the room because its windows were small.

Jojo Balmaceda, employed by British oil giant BP, and three fellow Filipino workers were taken at gunpoint as they arrived for work, tied up and thrown into a truck along with Japanese and Malaysian hostages, GMA network reported.

Balmaceda said he escaped when the truck was hit by an explosion, but suffered a gunshot wound in the head, which has affected his hearing.

“After that I ran away, fearing that the vehicle would explode. Then I lost consciousness and when I woke up I was already in hospital,” Balmaceda said.

“I hope to get on a flight so I would be back home tomorrow,” he said.

‘Garlanded with explosives’

The wife of Ruben Andrada said the militants garlanded them with explosives and put into trucks rigged with bombs.

Andrada was just days into his job at a gas plant in the North African desert, his wife said.

“According to him... they draped a bomb on him, like a necklace,” Edelyn Andrada said in an interview over radio dzMM.

“Luckily, the bomb planted in his vehicle failed to explode. The bombs in the other vehicles went off and so people died,” she said.

She said her husband, whom dzMM said worked as a surveyor for a Japanese company, communicated to her by text message as he recovered at an unspecified hospital, where he was being treated for gunshot wounds and cuts.

34 rescued Pinoy workers on their way home

DFA spokesman Raul Hernandez said the 34 Filipino workers evacuated from the Algerian gas field were on their way home.

“The 34 OFWs have already been evacuated from the gas field and are now in Spain for eventual repatriation to the Philippines, ” said Hernandez in a text message to reporters.

The 34 Filipinos were evacuated by chartered plane to Palma de Mallorca, Spain. One of the 34 OFWs suffered a gunshot wound.

Hernandez said the DFA sent a team from the Philippine embassy in Tripoli to Algeria to monitor the incident on the ground and assist the Filipino workers.

He did not say if there were other Filipino casualties or hostages. Earlier reports said that at least two Filipinos were among those killed in the rescue operation.

The al-Qaeda-linked gunmen, cited by Mauritania’s ANI news agency, said they still held seven foreigners. An Algerian security official put their number at 10.

Vice President Jejomar Binay expressed deep concern for the safety of Filipino workers who are still trapped in Algeria.

“The Algerian government has yet to provide any official report to the Department of Foreign Affairs and we share the department’s hope that such report be provided at the soonest time possible. Let us pray for an end to the crisis in Algeria and the safety of our kababayans,” Binay said in a statement.

Prisoner swap

 Meanwhile, the hostage-takers demanded a prisoner swap and an end to the French military campaign in Mali, a report said.

The APS, Algeria’s state news agency, said special forces had freed more than 670 hostages, among them 573 Algerians and around 100 foreigners. –With AP