A total of 376 Nigerians stranded in war-torn Sudan were safely airlifted to Abuja on Wednesday.
The evacuees, made up of mostly students, women and children arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja, aboard an Air Peace flight and the Nigerian Air Force fight C130 at 11:35pm.
They were airlifted from Aswan Airport in Egypt where they had fled following the War in Sudan.
Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar, who was on ground to welcome the evacuees, said
“some of them, their family members are here to receive them, while others are going to be under our care until they get to their families.
“We are giving them a stipend of N100,000 that will transport them back to families that is being supported by the Dangote Foundation, as well as a dignity kit and also 25000 recharge from MTN 1.5 mega giga data. Courtesy of MTN. All efforts have been put in place. Everyone has contributed in ensuring that you have some comfort while you return home
“War is not a good thing. You can see people who have gone to study, they have become refugees. All of a sudden, this is an international crisis. Also a humanitarian crisis, a humanitarian crisis in the sense that people have no food, no water, they don’t know where to go. It’s very unfortunate and very pathetic situation and Nigerians should pray for peace in our country.
“There are lots of protocols because this thing happened in Sudan. We have to go through all the issues to get clearance from the Egyptian authority, but tomorrow we’re going to give a full press briefing on what we went through”
Also speaking, a representative of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, NCFRMI, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, said “We have a full fledged psychosocial support program in place and they would indicate on their form. And we will also want to do zonal program for people that don’t live in Abuja, also we will also try to liaise with Ministry Foreign Affairs to see for the students how they can be able to get some kind of support, so that they don’t lose out on school that was done in the case of the Ukrainian and Russian war. And we’ll look into it to see what’s in place for this set of students.
“Like during the Russia/Ukraine war, the neighboring countries offered them transfer of service so they can complete their education, there was an online service, and investors in Nigeria were also willing to take them in that level at which they were at. So that’s the kind of support we give them to help their recovery process,”