More than 100 Filipinos are waiting to be evacuated from Kabul after President Rodrigo Duterte called for mandatory repatriation.
Thirty-five Filipino workers were earlier flown to Manila by their employers on a charter flight a few hours after the Taliban seized the capital city of Afghanistan on Aug. 16.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs is working non-stop to explore all options to ensure the safety and welfare of our people in Afghanistan in the face of challenging conditions,” foreign affairs assistant secretary Eduardo Menez told reporters on Aug. 17.
Menez said many of the stranded Filipinos are Catholics. They are afraid of the Taliban’s extreme treatment of those who do not adhere to their strict interpretation of Islam’s Sharia law.
“The Taliban’s return to power has also triggered many fears … which could lead to human rights violations like the rights of women and girls, including those who are non-Muslims,” Menez added.
Churchgoers are praying for the safety of all the Filipinos stranded in Afghanistan.
All those who need care because they are persecuted in their countries, you have a place here in the Philippines
“Imagine our generation was to witness a pandemic and the fall of the Afghanistan government. We really need to continue praying for peace in the world and for those [Filipinos] who are in Kabul. We live in a very scary world,” Manila parishioner John De Guzman told UCA News.
De Guzman said persecution is happening not only in Afghanistan. “There is also persecution here in the Philippines. People are being killed by a tyrant without due process of law. We should also pray for them,” De Guzman added.
Meanwhile, President Duterte assured Filipinos in Kabul that he would do all in his power to bring them home.
“The Philippine embassy in Pakistan, which has jurisdiction over Afghanistan, will oversee the repatriation of Filipinos in the area. I urge Filipinos in distress to get in touch with the embassy through its details,” Duterte said on national television.
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Duterte also announced the opening of Philippine borders to Afghans who want to seek asylum out of fear of the Taliban.
“All those who need care because they are persecuted in their countries, you have a place here in the Philippines,” Duterte’s spokesman Harry Roque told the press on Aug. 17.
Roque mentioned the times the Philippines had opened its borders to Russians fleeing the civil war between the White Army and Bolsheviks in the 1920s and the Vietnamese who fled the communists by boat.
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