Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Mohd. Noordin Pendosina N. Lomondot lead Philippine Embassy and POLO-OWWA officials and staff in sending off the Filipino repatriates of the chartered Philippine Airlines flight at Terminal 1 of Kuwait International Airport on 3 March 2021. Also in the photo is Philippine Overseas Labor Office Labor Attaché Nasser S. Mustafa. (Kuwait PE photo)
Close to 280 distressed or undocumented Filipinos in Kuwait will soon be reunited with their families in the Philippines after the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Philippine Embassy in Kuwait chartered its first repatriation flight of the year on 3 March 2021.
In a statement, Philippine Ambassador to Kuwait Mohd. Noordin Pendosina N. Lomondot said that the DFA chartered a special Philippine Airlines flight from Kuwait “as part of the Duterte administration’s unrelenting efforts to bring home overseas Filipinos amid the global coronavirus pandemic.”
“The gratitude of the Philippine Embassy and the Filipino community in Kuwait goes to the DFA, led by Secretary Teodoro L. Locsin Jr., for sending another chartered Philippine Airlines flight for our distressed kababayan in Kuwait,” Ambassador Lomondot said.
Ambassador Lomondot vowed that the Embassy will continue to provide assistance to those who wish to be repatriated back to the Philippines.
“This is not going to be the last repatriation flight that the DFA will charter for our fellow nationals in Kuwait. The Embassy’s Assistance to Nationals or ATN Unit stands ready to accept any repatriation requests from OFWs in Kuwait,” the Ambassador further said.
Ambassador Lomondot led the officials and staff of the Embassy, the Philippine Overseas Labor Office (POLO), and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration (OWWA) in assisting and sending off the overseas Filipinos at Terminal 1 of the Kuwait International Airport.
More than 85 percent of the chartered flight’s 279 passengers are distressed overseas Filipinos who previously took refuge at the Migrant Workers and Overseas Filipinos Resource Center (MWOFRC) or were imprisoned at various Kuwaiti detention facilities. Two of the Filipino passengers are infants.
The DFA previously chartered a pre-Christmas repatriation flight on 20 December 2020, bringing home more than 280 overseas Filipinos in Kuwait in time for the holiday season. The two repatriation flights in December 2020 and March 2021 were both funded by the DFA’s ATN Fund for Filipinos all over the world. END
Distressed or undocumented overseas Filipinos await their turn at the check-in at Kuwait International Airport on 3 March 2021, prior to their departure for Manila onboard the special Philippine Airlines flight chartered by the Department of Foreign Affairs. (Kuwait PE photo)
