162 stranded Nigerians return from Libya

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said it received another batch of 162 stranded Nigerian returnees from Libya in the early hours of Wednesday.

Idris Muhammed, coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office of NEMA, received the returnees on arrival at the cargo wing of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, at about 3:30 Wednesday morning via Libyan Airlines.

The returnees who were profiled consisted of 100 females, including four pregnant women, and 62 males. A breakdown of the number shows that 82 of the female returnees were adults, 13 children, and five infants, while for the men, there were 50 adults, four children, and 13 infants with two minor medical cases.

Muhammed, while welcoming the returnees, asked them to be agents of positive change and take up the challenge against irregular migrations by telling whoever wants to embark on such dangerous journeys to desist.

“Migration is protected by international and national statutes for movement of people through proper regularisation of papers that would protect and save you against risks of irregular migrations,” he said.

Muhammed said that NEMA hosted a team from European Union on monitoring and evaluation of the special EU intervention on assisted voluntary return of migrants. NEMA, he said, interfaced with the team on the ways of improving the present European Assisted Voluntary Returnees projects.

He said gaps were identified, especially on logistics which are causing nightmares to stakeholders and the returnees, but on the whole, he said the rescheduling of aircraft charter flights would be improved upon.

The European Assisted Voluntary Returnees exercise which began in April 2017 is expected to end in April 2020 and about 8,808 returnees have so far been repatriated back home to Nigeria from North Africa.

 

IFEOMA OKEKE