Thursday, July 31, 2014

Philippines to evacuate workers from Libya after gang-rape, beheading

(Libya) The Philippines is to charter ferries to speed up the removal of 13,000 nationals from Libya, officials said Thursday a day after a Filipina nurse was abducted and gang-raped there.

The foreign ministry on Thursday confirmed the sexual assault of the woman in the Libyan capital Tripoli on Wednesday.

It occurred 10 days after discovery at a hospital in the port of Benghazi of the beheaded remains of a Filipino construction worker who had been abducted earlier.

"We condemn these crimes that have been committed against our people," President Benigno Aquino's spokesman Herminio Coloma told reporters in Manila.

The woman was seized outside her residence and taken to an unknown location, where she was sexually assaulted by up to six youths, foreign department spokesman Charles Jose told reporters.

She was released about two hours later and a Filipino consular team took her to hospital for treatment, he added.

The Philippines ordered all 13,000 of its citizens to leave Libya following the beheading, with a consular team organizing evacuation by land to neighboring Tunisia and Egypt.