(Eagle News)–The Department of Foreign Affairs has recently repatriated over 300 Filipinos from Saudi Arabia.
In a statement, the DFA said the 344 Filipinos from Jeddah and other parts of the western region of the kingdom were “among the hundreds of (Overseas Filipino Workers) who were economically displaced and got stranded in the Kingdom because of the COVID-19 crisis that continues to ravage the Saudi economy.”
The group, the DFA said, included 76 former Filipino household service workers who sought temporary shelter at the Consulate General’s Bahay Kalinga while the office of the Philippine Labor Attaché in Jeddah (POLO-Jeddah) tried to settle their labor concerns with their former employers.
The Filipinos left Saudi Arabia on June 17, via a chartered Philippine Airlines (PAL) flight.
The chartered flight landed in Manila on June 18.
The Consulate General and POLO-Jeddah said they were planning another chartered flight sometime in July to repatriate more stranded Filipinos.
The DFA has said it has repatriated over 50,000 Filipinos abroad since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
