MORE than 400 Filipinos from Saudi Arabia and Myanmar were set to arrive in Manila yesterday amid a coronavirus pandemic that has sickened 4.8 million and killed about 317,000 people worldwide.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Brigido D. Dulay said in a social media post on Sunday night 345 Filipino workers from Saudi Arabia and 114 others from Myanmar were scheduled to land on Monday.

Forty-five distressed Filipino workers from Dubai and four crewmen of a research vessel in the United States also came home on May 13 and 14, bringing the number of Filipino repatriates to more than 27,000.

Meanwhile, almost 40 Filipinos in Libya had reached out to the Philippine Embassy there to avail themselves of the repatriation program, but failed to come home because of a lockdown.

“We can’t proceed with the repatriation at the moment but we’re on standby,” Philippine Ambassador to Libya Elmer G. Cato said at a news briefing.

Mr. Cato said the embassy had moved to a new location after fighting in Tripoli intensified anew in the past weeks. The civil war in Libya stemmed from attempts to overthrow the United Nations-recognized government. — Charmaine A. Tadalan

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