No Filipino was harmed in a series of Islamic State attacks in southern Syria on Wednesday that killed 252 people, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

Reports from the Philippine Embassy in Damascus said that at least 150 people were also wounded in the attacks.

Two Filipinas in Sweida married to Syrian nationals reported that they are all safe, according to Chargè d’Affaires Alex Lamadrid.

The DFA extended the Philippine government’s condolences to Damascus.

“We grieve with the families of the more than 200 people who lost their lives in the latest acts of terror by the Islamic State,” DFA Secretary Alan Peter S. Cayetano said.

Meanwhile, Lamadrid called on Filipinos in Syria to be vigilant and to take the necessary precautions to ensure their safety and security.

The Embassy, at the same time, said it remains ready to assist and repatriate any of the estimated 1,000 Filipinos still in Syria if they want to.

The coordinated attacks of Islamic State fighters across the province of Sweida, which included several suicide bombings, shattered the calm of a region that has been largely insulated from the worst of the violence of Syria’s seven-year-long civil war.

The suicide bomb blasts inside the provincial capital, also called Sweida, were apparently timed to coincide with attacks on villages in the eastern countryside, creating mayhem across the province.

The attacks triggered deadly clashes between pro-government fighters and residents who picked up weapons to defend their hometowns on one side and IS militants on the other. AP

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