At least 40 Filipinos have fled Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and headed to the western city of Lviv after Russia launched a full-scale attack on Feb. 24.
In a statement Saturday, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed their safe arrival in Lviv, expecting the number to increase in the coming days.
“The Philippine Embassy in cooperation with DFA-OUMWA (Office of the Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs), is committed to assisting the remaining Filipinos in Kyiv and in other parts of Ukraine in order to bring them out of harm’s way while there is still time,” Philippine Ambassador to Poland Leah Basinang-Ruiz said.
In other developments, a cargo ship owned by a Japanese firm was hit by a missile off the coast of Ukraine in the Black Sea on Friday — injuring one Filipino crew member — the marine transportation firm in western Japan said Saturday.
Filipino crew members aboard a Turkish ship are also safe after the vessel was hit by a Russian bomb in the port city of Odessa, the DFA said on Saturday.
In Manila, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) on Saturday called on Filipinos to unite in prayer for world peace, especially in Ukraine.
In an interview with Church-run Radio Veritas, CBCP president, Bishop Pablo Virgilio David, said fervent prayer is important to prevent the escalation of tension between Russia and Ukraine.
“We, the bishops of the Philippines, are saddened and in solidarity with our Christian brothers and sisters in Ukraine who are really anxious today; let us pray because we cannot afford another war, war is a great persecution in the whole world,” he added.
A team from the Philippine Embassy in Warsaw, which holds jurisdiction over Ukraine, set up a base in Lviv to facilitate the repatriation of Filipino nationals via a humanitarian corridor established between Philippine authorities and Poland.
Lviv is around 70 kilometers away from the Polish-Ukrainian border and is the main exit point for Filipinos arriving from the capital.
“ The bulk of our Filipinos, most of them are in Kyiv so it’s logical that the exit point is Lviv. If there are other people, for example they are in Odesa, they have to go through Moldova and our Embassy in Hungary is making representations to help them out,” Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Sarah Lou Arriola said in a DZMM interview on Saturday.
The Philippines has so far repatriated six Filipinos since tensions escalated in the country.
There are an estimated 380 Filipino nationals in Ukraine, but Arriola said only 181 have coordinated with the DFA. Some of the 40 Filipinos who just arrived in Lviv are still reluctant to go home, either because of work or they have families in Ukraine.
“Actually, the ones who were evacuated to Lviv, not all are decided to go home, we tried to talk to them but of course you cannot force them. We have a lot of fellow Filipinos there that until now, they’re still vacillating on whether to stay or to go because they’re hoping that the situation would still come back to normal,” Arriola said.
She added: “For those who want to go home we will repatriate but we will still help even those who want to stay.”