(Eagle News) – The Philippines’ Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has raised Alert Level 2 or a “restriction phase” on Sri Lanka due to the security situation in that country.
In an advisory, the DFA said that “there will be no new deployment of overseas Filipino workers to Sri Lanka, and only those with existing employment contracts are allowed to return to the country.”
Citing reports from the Embassy, the DFA said that there were no Filipinos injured during the recent incidents of violent protests in Sri Lanka.
It advised Filipinos in that country to “remain in their residences as much as possible, avoid areas where there are protests, and refrain from joining the mass action for their own safety and well-being.”
“The Department would like to emphasize that there are no plans yet to evacuate Filipinos from Sri Lanka at this time,” it said.
“The Department, in coordination with the office of the Philippine Honorary Consul General in Colombo, will be providing the needed assistance to Filipinos severely affected by the crisis,” the DFA said in a release on Saturday, July 16.
The DFA said that it was also in constant coordination with the Filipino community in Sri Lanka, through the Philippine Embassy in Dhaka, in view of the continuing unrest in the country sparked by a bankrupt economy that led people to stage mass protests.
These mass protests where Sri Lankans stormed the official residence of their country’s president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was forced to flee the country and resign.
(Eagle News Service)