MANILA, Philippines — There are now 156 Filipinos in conflict-ridden Sudan who have requested the Philippine government for repatriation assistance and the first batch of around 40 to 50 will be en route to Egypt in the next 24 hours.
Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Eduardo de Vega said over interviews with GMA News on Monday that effors to evacuate Filipino citizens is already underway.
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The Philippine Embassy in Cairo, which has jurisdiction over Sudan, is preparing to assist the first batch of evacuees that will be arriving.
“The situation is that you cannot just enter Egypt and so that’s why our embassy is coordinating with Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs so they would allow them to enter,” de Vega said in FIlipino over “Unang Balita.”
He said that there are now around 500 Filipinos in Sudan who have reached out to Philippine officials, adding that the majority of Filipinos there are undocumented.
The DFA years ago hoisted an Alert Level 2 over Sudan amid the conflict, meaning there are no official migrant worker deployments there.
Only 156 said they are ready to go home at any moment as they have with them their passports and their resident visas.
“They are not undocumented so they can be repatriated slowly in the next few days,” de Vega said.
Going home via Egypt
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. earlier said that one of the concerns of getting Filipinos out of Sudan by land is that officials “cannot ascertain a secure land route for them to leave.”
DFA’s de Vega said that there is now a huge demand for buses as people are scrambling to get out of Sudan before the clashes get even more fatal.
The bus the Philippines got for its nationals will be escorted on its way to the Sudan-Egypt border.
Several other nations have also staryed evacuating their citizens from Sudan, including Spain, Britain, France, Germany and the United States, some of them using Djibouti as an initial transit point.
But for the Philippines, its nearest foreign service post is its Philippine Embassy in Cairo. De Vega said that a team will be greeting the first batch of evacuees there upon their arrival.
“They will then be brought to Aswan, which is the tourist city near where they could begin their journey back home to the Philippines,” de Vega said.
The DFA also confirmed that three Filipino flight attendants were brought safely to Jeddah thanks to their company. Saudi Arabia earlier said its evacuation mission included nationals of other countries.
As the Philippines carries out a repatriation mission, the Philippines’ honorary consul in Sudan is also trying to look for shelters where Filipinos could temporarily stay in amid the clashes there. – with a report from Agence France-Presse