More OFWs flee to Jeddah flyover
By Jerome Aning
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 10:11:00 05/19/2010
Filed Under: Overseas Employment
MANILA, Philippines—A group of desperate stranded overseas Filipino workers, some with children in tow, have again sought shelter beneath a flyover in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in order to get the attention of Philippine diplomatic and labor officials.
Migrante-Mideast, an OFW alliance in the Middle East, said its chapter in Jeddah had received requests for assistance from the 22 OFWs, mostly women, who have taken shelter under the Khandara Bridge in Jeddah.
The Khandara Bridge has become a makeshift “refugee camp” for stranded migrant workers of various nationalities who hope that the local immigration police, the Jawasat, would apprehend them and eventually deport them to their own countries.
The Riyadh-based Migrante-Mideast regional coordinator John Leonard Monterona called on the Philippine consulate in Jeddah to take charge of the OFWs, saying that living under the flyover was not safe, particularly for the children.
He said that in the fourth quarter of 2009, the number of stranded OFWs living under the bridge had surged to 300. This prompted the Philippine Overseas Labor Office-Jeddah and the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to rent a villa near the city’s Al-Hajj terminal to temporarily accommodate them while the agencies were arranging for their repatriation.
http://globalnation.inquirer.net/news/breakingnews/view/20100519-270897/More-OFWs-flee-to-Jeddah-flyover
