Filipina injured in Barcelona attack

Relatives and sympathizers made offerings of candles and a stuffed toy for family members who died during the attack on Font de Canaletes in Barcelona which killed 14 people and injured over a hundred others.
/AFP

A Filipina from Australia was seriously injured and got separated from her son in a terrorist attack in Barcelona, Spain, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) confirmed on Saturday.

The seven-year-old boy got separated from his mother during the attack on Thursday and has been missing since then, the DFA said.

“It saddens us to inform the public that a kababayan (countryman) of ours from Australia and her seven-year-old son are among the victims of last Thursday’s terrorist attack in Barcelona,” Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said.

“I have directed our Embassy in Madrid to proceed to Barcelona and extend all possible assistance to our injured kababayan and to exert all efforts to help find her son,” Cayetano added.

Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs Sarah Arriola said the 43-year-old Filipina is married to a British man and has been based in Australia for the past three to four years. She and her son were in Barcelona to attend the wedding of a cousin from the Philippines when the incident happened.

Arriola said Philippine Honorary Consul in Barcelona Jordi Puig Roches has visited the victim in the hospital, and the DFA is already in touch with her relatives in the Philippines.

“We will continue to exert all efforts until we are sure that there are no other Filipinos among the victims of this dastardly act,” Arriola said.

She said the Philippine Embassy and the Honorary Consulate are working closely with members of the Filipino community in checking if there are other Filipinos who were among those killed or injured in the attack.

Thursday’s attack, which involved a van that plowed through crowds gathered in Barcelona’s Las Ramblas tourist district, also injured members of a Filipino-Irish family.