OFW Missing in Riyadh Blast Confirmed Dead

RIYADH, 14 November 2003 — A Filipino domestic helper who was missing after Saturday’s bomb attack at the Al-Muhaya Compound in Riyadh has turned out to be among the 17 fatalities, the Philippine Embassy said yesterday.

In the presence of Minister Mariano Dumia of the Philippine Embassy, a relative and friends of Raylin Nuez Abarra positively identified one of the bodies as hers on Wednesday, three days after the terrorist attack, which wounded 122 others, mostly Arabs and Asians.

Abarra’s body was earlier believed to be that of a Sri Lankan by the morgue staff of Shumeisy Hospital. She was the same Reylin that Lolita Montealto, another Filipino domestic who survived the attack, mentioned in a telephone interview with Arab News earlier from her hospital bed.

Montealto said that when she saw Reylin’s injured Lebanese employers before rescuers brought her to King Faisal Hospital, they were still unaware of the situation of their maid and her two wards, Rhea, 4 and Jad, 8. Abarra’s wards were later found dead.

The car bomb exploded right in front of their employers accommodations, house numbers 297 and 298 at Al-Muhaya compound, witnesses had said.

Montealto, who was saved by the stairs, sustained a fracture on her right forearm but managed to crawl out of the rubble minutes after their building collapsed.

Arab News called Montealto yesterday and she said she das already been told the sad news.

Abarra, who comes from Isabela in the northern Philippines, is thought to be still a minor by her friends. She had been in the Kingdom for only a year.

“Reylin told me that she was 27, but I didn’t believe her because she really looked very young,” said Montealto.

In Manila, Foreign Affairs Secretary Blas Ople also announced the sad news after being told by Ambassador Bahnarim Guinomla.

Ople had directed the embassy to facilitate the transport of Abarra’s remains back to the Philippines and to ensure that her family would be given all the benefits due her.

“Though I share the great mourning her family is going through, I also admire the courage and dedication displayed by Reylin as she was reportedly caring for her employers’ two children when the attack occurred,” he said.

In a telephone interview, Dumia told Arab News that the embassy is now completing procedures such as providing the police full identification of the victim to obtain clearance.

“Next will be the medical certificate, and exit documents. And just to ensure prompt repatriation of the body, we might seek the help of the office of Prince Salman again just like we did during the repatriation of the 3 Filipino victims in the May 12 bombing,” he said.

The 3 dead Filipinos in the May 12 bombing were repatriated after two weeks.

“We have already reported to the DFA for possible financial assistance to the family of Reylin,” he added.

Under Saudi labor law, domestic helpers are not entitled to death benefits.

When asked if she would still come back to work in Saudi Arabia, Montealto said she would look for a job in Davao del Sur, the province in the southern Philippines where she comes from. She said her employers, who will return soon to Lebanon, told her that they would send her home as soon as she comes out of the hospital.

Dumia said they may seek voluntary financial support for Lolita, who is scheduled to undergo a second operation on her right forearm on Sunday.

“We’ll make sure that she will get whatever salary she still has to collect from her employers before her exit,” Dumia said.