A Filipino engineer was among the three people killed in an ambush attack in Iraq's northern city of Kirkuk ednesday afternoon, a Foreign Affairs official confirmed Thursday.

Citing a report from the embassy in Iraq, Jose Brillantes, Foreign Affairs Undersecretary for Migrant Workers Affairs, declined to identify the Filipino victim since his family has not yet been informed of the incident.

He only disclosed the victim had worked for the US-based company Lucent Technologies.

According to the embassy's report, the Filipino was killed along the "highway of death" or the stretch of road from Tikrit to Baghdad.

The engineer was the third Filipino who had been killed in Iraq this year, bringing to five the Filipino death toll since the US- led invasion in the strife-torn state in 2003.

In April, two Filipinos died in two separate ambush attacks outside the camps in Iraq.

Brillantes again urged close to 6,000 Filipino workers in Iraq to avail of immediate repatriation to the Philippines.

"This is a grim reminder of the dangers of being in Iraq, where we can't guarantee the security and protection of Filipino workers there at this time. We are calling on all our workers to avail of repatriation," he said.

Noting that the threat to the safety and lives of the Filipinos in Iraq remain critical, the Philippine government has not yet lifted the ban on deployment of overseas workers in Iraq.

Despite the ban, many Filipinos still manage to sneak into the country in search for better paying jobs.

Source: Xinhua