The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has retained its deployment ban of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to South Sudan amid the prevailing violence in the African nation.
In its Resolution 1, Series of 2021, the POEA Governing Board maintained its total deployment ban for South Sudan even after the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) lowered its alert level for the said country.
Last March, DFA downgraded the alert level for South Sudan from Alert Level 4 (mandatory repatriation phase) to Alert Level 3 (voluntary repatriation phase) due to the formation of a unity government between the two warring factions vying for leadership of the African state.
The government, however, observed that “several security concerns, high level of violence and armed conflict” still exist in South Sudan worsened by the rising novel coronavirus disease (Covid-19) cases there.
With this in consideration, the POEA Governing Board opted to sustain the imposition of a total ban on the processing and deployment of all OFWs bound for South Sudan.
POEA first imposed a total deployment ban in South Sudan on September 24, 2019.
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