Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano has instructed the Philippine Embassy in Madrid to extend all possible assistance to a Filipina who was seriously injured in Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona and to exert all efforts to help locate her son who remains unaccounted for.
The Department of Foreign Affairs said Secretary Cayetano had also ordered Embassy Chargè d’Affaires Emmanuel Fernandez to proceed immediately to Barcelona to assist the Filipina who remains in serious condition at a hospital there.
“It saddens us to inform the public that a kababayan of ours from Australia and her seven-year-old son are among the victims of last Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona,” Secretary Cayetano said.
“I have directed our Embassy in Madrid to proceed to Barcelona and extend all possible assistance to our injured kababayan and to exert all efforts to help find her son,” Secretary Cayetano added.
Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Arriola said the 43-year-old Filipina is the wife of a British subject and has been based in Australia for the past three or four years. She and her son were in Barcelona to attend the wedding of a cousin from the Philippines when the incident happened.
Undersecretary Arriola said Honorary Consul Jordi Puig Roches visited the victim in the hospital after he was notified by local authorities. She said the DFA is in touch with her relatives in the Philippines.
Undersecretary Arriola said the woman’s husband is also on his way to Barcelona to help locate his son who got separated from his mother during the attack.
Thursday’s attack, which involved a van that plowed through crowds gathered in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas tourist district, also resulted in injuries to members of an Irish family that was of Filipino descent.
Undersecretary Arriola said the Honorary Consul continues to monitor the condition of the father and his son and reported the success of the surgery performed on the five-year old son who suffered a leg injury as a result of the attack.
“We will continue to exert all efforts until we are sure that there are no other Filipinos among the victims of this dastardly act,” Undersecretary Arriola said.
She said the Embassy and the Honorary Consulate are working closely with members of the Filipino Community in checking if there are other Filipinos who were among those who were killed or injured in the attack. (DFA-PR)