Calls for probe as woman's body found in suitcase

A Middle East-based migrant workers' group is urging authorities in the capital to investigate the brutal death of a Filipino migrant worker who arrived last Tuesday from Bahrain. Nidzmar Bahjin, 20, returned to the Philippines from Bahrain at 3pm last Tuesday according to Pasay City police. On Wednesday, her body was found stuffed inside a suitcase abandoned at a parking area in the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Terminal 2. Her gruesome death has not only shocked her family, but also raised concerns of Filipino migrant workers arriving in the country through the airport. Strangled Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and other people using the airports fear if it can happen to Nidzmar, nothing can deter criminals from reaching others. "We condemn her brutal killing. Only a person with no conscience but with a highly criminal mind [could] do it to her putting even her cold dead body inside her own suitcase," said John Leonard Monterona, Migrante, Middle East regional coordinator. Pasay City police investigators were quoted in reports as saying that the young migrant worker, a Muslim from Sulu, was apparently abducted and strangled to death. It is yet unknown if she is related to Philippine Ambassador to Bahrain Corazon Yap-Bahjin. Monterona said the apparent ease at which Nidzmar's killers had been able to get to her and dump her body at the premises of a supposedly secure area underscores the review needed of security processes not only at NAIA airports but in similar facilities in the country.