Gov't advises Filipinos in Libya to leave immediately

MANILA, Philippines (Xinhua) - The Philippine government has heightened its call to Filipinos in Libya to avail of voluntary repatriation as it is set to deploy this week a team to the troubled country to assist embassy personnel in Tripoli, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said today.

In view of the increasingly volatile security situation in Libya, the department advised "all Filipino nationals in Libya to leave the country immediately."

Libya is presently under Crisis Alert Level 3, which involves total deployment ban for returning and newly-hired overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to Libya, as well as voluntary repatriation for Filipino nationals.

The DFA said it will also dispatch a four-person team to Libya within the week to augment the Rapid Response Team and the embassy personnel stationed in Tripoli.

The augmentation team, together with the Rapid Response Team, and Tripoli Embassy representatives will be tasked to provide regular updates to the DFA home office, as well as to coordinate with the Filipino community, the employers, and Libya officials and to facilitate the repatriation efforts, it added.

There are around 13,000 Filipinos living and working in Libya. The majority of them are skilled and semi-skilled workers engaged in oil, medical, construction, and service industries.