21 rescued Filipino seafarers to fly home on Monday, 17 others remain in captivity
Search effort on for a Filipino seafarer who remains 'missing'
Manila: Following their rescue on Friday night, the 21 Filipino seafarers aboard the Houthi-hit MV Tutor are set to fly back to Manila today (Monday).
The seafarers were rescued by combined international forces late on Friday and the 21 were extracted from the ship, taken to safer port, according to a government official here.
The missing Filipino seafarer was at the engine room when the MV Tutor was hit by a double missile attack while traversing the Red Sea on Wednesday, June 12. The seafarer remains unaccounted for.
Hans Leo Cacdac, Secretary of the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW) said the search operation continues to find the missing Filipino sailor.
“The Philippine government strongly condemns this attack,” Cacdac said. “We are working tirelessly to locate our missing seafarer, who is reportedly in the engine room.”
Earlier reports from Reuters suggested the missing crew member might be trapped in the engine room. Mariner Traffic, a merchant marine website, reported that MV Tutor was on the way to Aqaba, Jordan when it was hit. She is currently reported to be "out-of-range".
Length overall: 229 metres
Width: 32.3 metres
The ship is registered in Liberia, a common practice for commercial vessels.
Greek-owned: The ownership of the MV Tutor is Greek. It is about 2 years old (built in 2022).
The official said they have already informed the family of the missing Filipino seafarer and relayed to them President Marcos’ directive to monitor the situation.
“I accompanied the family of the missing seafarer to the office of the manning agency and I met the ship owner’s agent there and we were assured that we will not stop in terms of locating our missing seafarer who is just within the ship,” he said.
“The president has clearly directed us to monitor the situation as well as the continuing well-being of the 21 seafarers who are now headed for safer port. So, it really, really just boils down to finding, locating our seafarer who is still onboard the MV Tutor,” he added.
The rescued seafarers landed in Manama, Bahrain on Saturday at 5:30 pm local time (10:30 pm, Philippine time) via a US Navy ship.
Working to free 17 Filipino seafarers
Secretary Cacdac revealed the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) is working tirelessly with other countries to bring home 17 Filipino seafarers.
These crew members were captured by Houthi rebels last November while on the cargo ship MV Galaxy Leader in the Red Sea.
In March, 11 Filipinos came home safe while two were killed during the attack on Barbados-flagged bulk carrier MV True Confidence.
“The ongoing effort to secure their release is being undertaken through the DFA. The DFA is communicating with foreign governments who have communication line with Houthi rebels with the objective of securing the release of our seafarers and bringing them home safely,” he said.
Cacdac said the remains of the two fatalities have been secured and are “expected to be home soon.”
“Thankfully, international forces were able to extract the 21 seafarers last night,” Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Cacdac said in a forum on Saturday. “They are safe and have been transferred to a secure location.”