DAVAO CITY – Four of the 78 overseas Filipino workers who returned home from Yemen on Tuesday, are from Davao Region, an OWWA (Overseas Workers Welfare Administration) official here said.
The 78 OFWs and two children from Yemen returned home April 14 aboard Philippine Airlines flight PR 655 at 9:15 am.
Zoe Caro, chief of Programs Services in OWWA 11 said that it was still uncertain whether or not all the other OFWs coming from the region have returned from Yemen.
Alert Level 4 was raised in February this year when the strife in the said country escalated.
The returnees availed of the Philippine government’s mandatory repatriation program. Some of the OFWs are now temporarily housed at the OWWA Halfway Home before they return to their respective provinces. Most of them are from the Visayas and Mindanao.
There are already 342 repatriated Filipino migrant workers from Yemen.
The Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA) said 4,326 OFWs were deployed to Yemen in 2014, of whom 1,503 were new hires and the rest, 2,823 were re-hires. Based on the data of the Commission on Filipinos Overseas 77 Filipinos are permanent residents in Yemen, while there are 75 irregular workers.
POEA’s latest data shows 5,031 Filipinos leave the country daily to work abroad. (davaotoday.com)
