The Philippines renewed calls for thousands of its
nationals to leave Libya on Thursday after a Filipina nurse was abducted
and gang-raped, following the beheading of a Filipino construction
worker.
The foreign department said all 13,000 Filipinos there were to be
repatriated as clashes between rival militias threaten to tear the
country apart three years after Libyan dictator Moamer Kadhafi was
toppled.
"We reiterate our call to our remaining nationals in Libya to
immediately get in touch with the Philippine embassy in Tripoli and
register for repatriation," said a fresh foreign department advisory
issued Thursday.
The call came as the ministry confirmed reports that a Filipina nurse was abducted and gang-raped there on Wednesday.
The woman was seized outside her residence and taken to an unknown
location, where she was sexually assaulted by up to six youths.
- She was released about two hours later and a Filipino consular team took her to hospital for treatment, he added.
- The Philippines ordered its nationals out of Libya on July 20, the same day the beheaded remains of a Filipino construction worker were found at a hospital in the port of Benghazi.
- The man had been abducted by suspected militiamen on July 15, apparently singled out because he was not a Muslim, according to Jose.
The department said a consular team has stayed behind in Tripoli
despite the precarious security situation to coordinate the evacuation
of Filipinos by land to Tunisia and Egypt where they will eventually be
flown home. It has also barred its nationals from traveling to Libya.
About 10 million Filipinos live and work abroad, many of them in the Middle East, in search of better-paying jobs.
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