Philippines officials say they are bringing home two Philippine maids who asked to be rescued from the Libyan home of a nephew of deposed leader Moammar Gadhafi.

The foreign ministry said Tuesday the two women fled the residence Monday and were picked up by Philippine embassy cars that had taken up positions outside the Libyan household. It said the women, who left all their belongings behind, have been transported to neighboring Tunisia and will be flown to the Philippines, likely within the week.

The ministry did not identify the women's employer by name. It said two other Philippine domestics who had been working in the household are now working at another residence and are not seeking to leave Libya.

Thousands of Philippine citizens were in Libya at the start of the anti-Gadhafi uprising, many of them employed as domestic workers.

Foreign Affairs Secretary Albert del Rosario personally escorted about 550 of them to Tunisia in a convoy of vans and buses in late February.