Hundreds of Pinoys Fly Home from Syria
/Some 270 Filipino immigrant workers who took shelter in the Philippine embassy compound in the Syrian capital, Damascus, returned home in mid-December with assistance from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This brought the number of Filipinos repatriated from Syria by IOM at the request of the Philippine government to 1,206 since the conflict began in March 2011. Fighting between government forces and rebels closed Damascus airport, and most airlines are no longer flying to the Syrian capital. The embassy had to bus the immigrants to Lebanon and IOM flew them home in a chartered aircraft from the Lebanese capital Beirut.