Ten Filipino workers were among the civilians killed in a helicopter crash at NATO’s largest air base in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday.
All 16 people aboard the Russian-owned civilian Mi-8 helicopter died Sunday when it slammed into the tarmac at Kandahar Air Base shortly after takeoff.
Philippine diplomats from neighboring Pakistan have arrived in the Afghan capital, Kabul, to help identify the bodies and repatriate them, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Esteban Conejos told The Associated Press.
He said the victims’ next of kin were being informed Tuesday.
The Philippines has banned its overseas workers from Afghanistan, but many still end up employed at military bases there.
A Filipino carpenter at Kandahar Air Base was killed in a rocket attack in March.
The Filipinos killed Sunday had been working at the NATO base for several years. They did not return to the Philippines because the government had imposed a ban on travel to Afghanistan, the head of the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration, Carmelita Dimzon, told the Philippine Star daily.
Dimzon could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Last week, Manila airport authorities intercepted 13 workers bound for Afghanistan. Vice President Noli de Castro said they had been recruited illegally as carpenters, plumbers and electricians at the Kandahar base for a monthly salary of $1,300 — about 10 times what they would make back home.
Nearly 10 percent of the country’s 90 million people work abroad — many as nurses, maids, engineers, construction workers and seamen. Last year, overseas Filipinos sent home $16.4 billion, equal to about 10.4 percent of the country’s gross domestic product, fueling domestic consumption that is a lynchpin of the economy.
Apart from Afghanistan, Filipino workers are not allowed to seek jobs in Iraq, Lebanon and Nigeria. About 6,000 were thought to be working illegally at military bases across Iraq. – AP
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