Ten Filipino workers were killed in a helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, local media reported on Tuesday.
The Philippine Overseas Workers Welfare Administration has confirmed that ten Filipinos were among the 16 who died in the air tragedy in Kandahar Province, the Philippine Star said. The helicopter was a civilian aircraft under contract, belonging to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in the war- worn country, reported Xinhua.
"They were legally deployed three or five years ago but they were unable to return since we imposed a ban in Afghanistan," said Carmelita Dimzon, chief of the government agency, quoted by the local newspaper.
The Philippine government imposed a ban on the deployment of Filipino workers to Afghanistan due to prevailing hostilities there.
"They may already be considered undocumented because of the deployment ban," Dimzon said, adding that the Philippine authorities will work for the immediate repatriation of the bodies of the Filipino workers once they have been recovered.
The nationalities of the six other helicopter crash victims were not immediately known.
More than eight million Filipinos, or 10 percent of the country 's population, are working overseas, whose remittances back to their families act as a cornerstone of the Philippines' national economy. Afghanistan is one of the five countries in which the Philippine government prevents its nationals to work, but many would still work at military bases there for high salaries.
In March, a Filipino carpenter was killed after being hit by rocket fire outside the Kandahar Air Base, a key NATO airbase and the second biggest military installation in Afghanistan.
...