On the eve of Labor Day, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) brought home an additional 359 overseas Filipinos from various parts of the globe. The repatriates arrived on four different flights throughout Thursday afternoon until late evening. Aside from 280 land-based OFWs from Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the other repatriates were comprised of 15 wards from Philippine Embassy shelter in Doha, Qatar, 18 undocumented OFWs from Taiwan, 1 engineer from Lahore, Pakistan, 25 seafarers of MSC Magnifica from Marseilles, France and 19 tourists and OFWs from Dubai, UAE. Upon their arrival, the repatriates underwent rapid testing for COVID-19.
The Philippine Embassies in Riyadh, Islamabad, Doha and Paris and the Philippine Consulates General in Jeddah and Dubai assisted the Filipinos in their return home.
To date, the DFA has successfully facilitated the repatriation of 23,729 Filipinos from all over the world. Of this number, 21,519 were repatriated in the month of April alone.
