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OWWA asked to help kin of OFW killed in Iraq fire


Malacañang on Friday ordered the Overseas Workers Welfare Administration to extend full assistance to the family of a Filipina engineer who died in a hotel fire in Iraq early Friday. Presidential Communications Group official Herminio Coloma also said Palace expects the Labor Department to address other possible concerns of the victim’s family. “Kasama yan sa mandate ng OWWA.... Natitiyak ko na gagawin ito ng OWWA at tinututukan ito ng ating DOLE (It is part of the OWWA’s job. I am sure it will do its job, as well as the Department of Labor and Employment)," Coloma said on government-run dzRB radio. One Filipina worker was among at least 40 killed in a fire that hit a hotel in the northern Iraq city of Sulaimaniya early Friday morning (Manila time). Foreign Affairs Department spokesman Eduardo Malaya earlier said two other Filipino workers survived the fire. Joshua Ermitano is recuperating at a hospital with a broken leg, while Richie Salceda was discharged from the hospital also on Friday, Malaya said. A report on Khaleej Times Friday afternoon quoted the chairman of Asiacell Mobile Company – employer of the Filipina – as saying the fire’s casualties were from the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Cambodia. [See: Pinay engineer among dead in Iraq hotel fire] “We lost four engineers from our company, one of them a lady from the Philippines, and three of them men from Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Iraq," Asiacell chairman Faruk Mula Mustafa was quoted in the report as saying. It added the engineers from Sri Lanka, Philippines and Cambodia were visiting telecommunications engineers. The Khaleej Times report also quoted hospital officials as saying four Americans were also among the fatalities, while two other Iraqi employees were injured. It added at least three of the victims died when they jumped from the windows of the Soma Hotel to avoid flames, after the fire broke out at around 7:30 GMT Thursday (5:30 a.m. Friday in Manila). — LBG, GMANews.TV

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