74 Pinoys in Georgia to be evacuated

MANILA, Philippines – Seventy-four Filipino workers in Georgia will be evacuated after Russian planes bombed that country’s Black Sea port and Russian tanks rolled into the Georgian province of South Ossetia on Friday.

Vice President Noli de Castro, presidential adviser on overseas Filipino workers, ordered yesterday the Philippine embassy in Ankara, Turkey to prepare for the evacuation.

“I instructed Undersecretary (Esteban) Conejos Jr. and the Philippine embassy in Turkey to be prepared for the evacuation of our Filipino workers should the situation worsen,” he said.

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said that contingency plans for 60 Filipinos in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and 14 at the Port of Batumi are already in place.

Ambassador to Ankara Bahnarim Guinomla said the 74 Filipinos in Georgia have already mobilized themselves for possible evacuation.

The Filipinos have organized themselves into groups to make it easier for the embassy to coordinate with them, he added.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said yesterday the country was officially in a “state of war.”

“I have signed a decree on a state of war,” he said on national television.

“Georgia is under a state of total military aggression by the Russian navy, air force, large-scale ground operations.”

Russian tanks and troops surged into South Ossetia on Friday to repel a Georgian offensive to reclaim the region.

South Ossetia broke from Georgia in the early 1990s. – Pia Lee-Brago