Thirteen overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) from the United Arab Emirates who were stranded in Singapore’s Changi Airport since June 1 will be flown home Friday night, June 4, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed.
“The 13 OFWs are already coming home tonight from Singapore. Our embassy in Singapore gave them food, water and clothes, and regularly called on them while they were waiting for their case to be addressed,” DFA Executive Director for Strategic Communications Ivy Banzon-Abalos told The Filipino Times.
“It was also the embassy that worked out the logistical details of their return home,” Abalos added.
The OFWs were denied entry to the Philippines shortly after the government’s decision to extend the travel ban on several countries including the UAE, Oman, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Nepal, from June 1 to June 15.
They were told to fly back to the Gulf country, but they insisted that they were not informed ahead that the travel ban would be extended.
President Rodrigo Duterte had approved on Monday night the extension of the travel ban following the proposal of the national task force against COVID-19.
The imposed travel curb aims to prevent the entry of the more transmissible Indian COVID-19 strain, which has been declared as a variant of concern by the World Health Organization.
Flight restriction on passengers from India was announced last April 29. It was later on extended to cover other Asian countries such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
The UAE and Oman were added on the list after the first cases of the Indian variant first detected in the Philippines came from persons who had travel history in these two countries.
