By Houda Mzioudet,
Tripoli, 11 November 2013:
The Filipino community in Libya is raising funds for the victims of typhoon Haiyan, which claimed . . .[restrict]the lives of over 10,000 people. The typhoon struck the archipelago of the Philippines on Friday and it is considered the worst recorded natural disaster in the country.
Doris Battad, a Filipino nurse in Benghazi and community leader in the eastern Libyan city told the Libya Herald that she and members of the Overseas Filipino Workers’ (OFW) association started a fundraising campaign on Friday to help victims of the typhoon.
The community mobilised through the local cathedral – the Franciscan Order – to raise funding for the victims, Battad added. She hopes that the collected donations will be transferred to the Philippine Embassy to send them to the victims.
Oscar G. Orcine, the Philippine ambassador in Libya told the Libya Herald that because of the power outage in many affected regions since 7 November and the inability to determine damage caused by the typhoon, the embassy was unable to give information to Filipinos living in Libya and asking about their relatives and friends back home.
“We received instructions from the Filipino Ministry of Foreign Affairs to receive inquiries about donations from Filipinoes abroad,” he explained
OFWs is compiling a list of members of the community whose families in the Philippines were seriously affected and will be forwarded to the embassy in Tripoli for their dispensation.
Battad stated that her community has contacted a local association, the “Libya Hurra Society”, asking for assistance, while stressing that they did not get any moral support form locals.
“We are trying to reach out to as many people as possible here,” she concluded.
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