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Four Filipinos working for the US government in
Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, were killed by a rocket attack on
Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
In Nigeria, eight Filipinos were
among 12 foreign workers kidnapped by armed militants.
The rocket attack in Baghdad took
place on Wednesday.
The US charge d’affairs in
Baghdad Daniel Speckhard said Thursday that the four Filipinos
“were integral members of our embassy community.”
“We value their contributions
to our efforts on behalf of the people of Iraq, and we mourn their
passing,” he added, in a statement.
In Manila President Arroyo on
Thursday ordered a “quick reassessment” of the country’s
repatriation plan for workers in Iraq following the deaths of the
four Filipinos.
Presidential spokesman Ignacio
Bunye said the President was “saddened by the news” and had
asked the Department of Foreign Affairs to “ensure the immediate
repatriation of the remains” of the workers.
He said the DFA had been asked to
“conduct a quick reassessment of the situation to determine if
more OFWs [overseas Filipino workers] in Iraq need or want to be
repatriated.”
The President imposed a ban on
travel to Iraq in 2004 after Filipino truck driver Angelo de la Cruz
was seized by insurgents.
She also caused a mild rift
between Washington and Manila when she pulled out a token contingent
of Filipino troops serving with US coalition forces which was a
condition for Cruz’s freedom.
Officials say more than 4,000
Filipinos working in US camps in Iraq—mostly as cooks or
maintenance personnel—remained there when the ban was imposed.
The attack took place after
several days of mortar attacks against the Green Zone, the seat of
the Iraqi government as well as the US and British embassies.
The Filipinos died on the same
day that a US military spokesman warned that insurgent gunners were
trying “to score a spectacular hit or obtain a headline grabbing
direct hit” on a Green Zone target.
Bunye said a ban on Filipinos
traveling to Iraq would remain, but nationals who were already there
were “urged to take necessary precautions for their safety”
while keeping in touch with the embassy there.
Another Filipino, accountant
Robert Tarongoy, was kidnapped by militants but freed in June 2005
after eight months in captivity.
Mrs. Arroyo had earlier created a
special task force to look into repatriation plans for those still
in Iraq.
In Nigeria, a government
spokesman said “three Koreans from Daewoo Engineering and
Construction, eight Philippine workers and a local driver have been
kidnapped by a group of armed insurgents.”
The workers were taken hostage at
a power plant construction site near Port Harcourt in the Niger
Delta area, he said.
“A gunfight erupted between the
insurgents and security guards but there have been no reports of
injuries involving South Korean workers as yet,” he said.
An emergency control center,
consisting of Daewoo officials and South Korean diplomats in
Nigeria, has been established to work for an early release of the
hostages, the spokesman said.
No group came forward immediately
to claim the kidnapping.
Rich in oil reserves, the Niger
Delta area has been at the center of a long confrontation between
the Nigerian government and a militant group.
Kidnappings of foreign workers in
the area have been frequent in recent years.
Twenty-four Filipino crewmen of
an oil tanker were seized by insurgents in the Niger Delta in
January. They were freed almost a month later.
Nine Daewoo workers were taken
hostage in January but were later released unharmed.
--Sam Mediavilla,
Francis Earl Cueto and AFP
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