|
THE Department of Foreign Affairs
(DFA) on Friday confirmed the release of the 51-year-old engineer
who was kidnapped by militants in Nigeria.
The DFA also
said the Filipina earlier reported to have been also abducted in
Nigeria has returned home.
In a telephone
interview, Foreign Affairs spokesman Claro Cristobal said that after
30 days as a hostage, Winston Helera is now in the custody of his
employers in Abuja, Nigeria.
Cristobal did
not say if a ransom was paid for Helera’s freedom. The Philippines
has a standing policy of refusing to pay ransom to kidnappers.
Cristobal said
they hope that Helera would be allowed to return to the Philippines
in the coming weeks.
He said they
had given the case of Filipino Josiebeth Gregorio Foroozan to the
National Bureau of Investigation after it turned out that she may
have returned to the Philippines as early as February 10.
Foroozan was
reportedly kidnapped on February 7 in Port Harcourt.
Cristobal said
Foroozan appeared to be in the flight manifest of Lufthansa Airlines
on February 6 leaving Lagos, Nigeria for Frankfurt, Germany.
Undersecretary
for Migrant workers Esteban Conejos gave the same report as
Cristobal, according to the website of GMA News.
“Today, I
have information in our possession to show that what happened was
not a kidnapping case. And this is the information that we have. No.
1, she has been ‘kidnapped for the last 30 days, and for the last
30 days nobody has come forward to claim responsibility for this act
and nobody has submitted any demands for their release,” Conejos
said.
“Second,”
he continued, “acting on a tip from an eyewitness that she was
seen in Frankfurt, Germany, our embassy in Abuja was able to get
written confirmation that on February 6, the alleged date of her
kidnapping, she was in the passenger manifest of a Lufthansa Airways
flying from Lagos to Frankfurt, Germany.”
Conejos, who
returned recently from Nigeria, said he wanted the case to be more
solid than what the Philippine Embassy in Abuja gathered.
On Thursday,
he said, he received a confirmation from “the highest officials”
of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) that Foroozan
arrived in the Philippines February 10 onboard Lufthansa Flight 788.
The Bureau of Immigration confirmed the information through its
immigration arrival record.
Foroozan is a
native of San Jose, Occidental Mindoro. She is married to an Iranian
businessman based in Nigeria and lived in Port Harcourt for 17
years.
Conejos said
the DFA has communicated the information to Foroozan’s relatives
in the Philippines who, in turn, said they have not heard of
Foroozan.
Twenty-four
Filipino seamen who were abducted by Nigerian militants on January
20 in the Niger Delta were released after 24 days. All 24 returned
to the country on February 17.
Armed men
blocked the convoy carrying Helera in Owerri on his way to Port
Harcourt to catch his flight to Lagos for his quarterly vacation. He
is an instrumentation engineer of Netco Dietsmann, the Nigerian arm
of Monaco-based Shell oil services.
|
