KUWAIT– After the repatriation program of the Philippine government on April 22, the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait intends to increase teams “rescuing” distressed Filipinos from seven to 10, an official of the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) said Wednesday.
The embassy supported by an augmentation team from the DFA-Office of Migrant Workers Affairs (OMWA) brings the total “rescue” teams in Kuwait to seven.
In the past two weeks, these groups have been working overtime to take custody of as many as 200 distressed Filipinos who have filed “rescue” requests at the embassy.
Raul Dado, executive director of the DFA-OMWA, said the embassy has reduced the number of Filipinos who requested assistance from 200 to at least 136 as of April 7.
The seven teams under his supervision have been carrying out the “rescues” with the assistance of Kuwaiti authorities.
The teams have been rescuing a daily rate of six to seven distressed Filipino household service workers all over Kuwait. After the Kuwaiti amnesty program ends on April 22, the repatriation unit of the embassy will join the rescue team.
DFA-Office of Public Diplomacy Assistant Secretary Elmer Cato said the agency hopes to address the backlog within April 2018.
“We are hoping that before the end of next month, we would have addressed the backlog and we could respond immediately to requests for ‘rescue’ from our kababayans there. They will no longer have to wait weeks or months before we could get to them,” he said. (PNA)
