Jakarta, (Antara)- The Indonesian embassy in Damascus, Syria, repatriated 33 Indonesian migrant workers through the Damascus International Airport.
"It is for the first time that we were able to repatriate the 33 migrant workers from the Damascus International Airport since 2011,"A.M. Sidqi of the Indonesian embassy noted in a statement, on Tuesday.
The Damascus airport had earlier been shut down due to the conflict, so over the past four years, repatriation had been carried out through Lebanon, Jordan, or Turkey, he pointed out.
The embassy has so far conducted 265 operations to repatriate Indonesian citizens. A total of 11,988 Indonesians have been evacuated from Syria since the civil war began in 2011.
The embassy is currently still accommodating 55 migrant workers, and more are expected to come to the embassy.
Indonesian Ambassador to Syria Djoko Harjanto stated that the main mission of the embassy is to provide protection and repatriate Indonesians from the armed conflict-torn Arab country.
The ambassador stated that despite the moratorium on the dispatch of migrant workers to Syria over the past five years, several Indonesian workers continued to arrive in Syria.
The workers are the victims of human trafficking crimes, according to the ambassador.(*)
