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NBI ready to send team to Libya to identify remains of 4 Filipinos

Philippines | National

NBI ready to send team to Libya to identify remains of 4 Filipinos

By Jeffrey Damicog

The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) is ready to send a forensics team to Libya to identify if the remains found there are indeed those of the four Filipinos kidnapped and killed by Islamic State (ISIS) extremists.

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)
(MANILA BULLETIN)

NBI Deputy Director Ferdinand M. Lavin said on Wednesday, March 3, the agency will send a team “depending on the request of DFA (Department of Foreign Affairs) and the approval from DOJ (Department of Justice).”

“We are ready to deploy anytime, full forensics depending on the need of requesting party,” Lavin said.

“We have initial coordination with the immediate family members and relatives of the victims,” he said.

The Philippine Embassy in Libya announced that it was able to locate last Monday, March 1, the grave site where the four Filipinos have been buried in the eastern coastal city of Derna.

The embassy said it has been informed way back in 2018 by the Libyan Red Crescent that the four Filipinos could be among those it recovered from the burial ground.

But, due to the unstable security situation, the embassy said it could not send a team to Derna.

The four Filipinos were employed by the Austrian contracting firm Value Added Oil Services (VAOS).

They were reported missing along with two co-workers from Austria and the Czech Republic when ISIS militants attacked the Ghani Oil Field in Southern Libya on March 6, 2015.

Since then, nothing has been heard what happened to them until a laptop seized from an ISIS fighter in Derna was found to contain a video which showed their execution.

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