Nigeria to evacuate nationals stranded in Libya

The Nigerian government said it is making arrangements to evacuate citizens who are stranded in Libya amid crisis.

Deputy Director in charge of Search and Rescue for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Bandele Onimode confirmed late on Tuesday that the government is to evacuate another set of Nigerians from Libya.

Onimode led a delegation to the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora (SSAPFAD) Abike Dabiri-Erewa.

The delegation had come to shed light on the efforts of the agency in the rescue operations in Libya and other countries and what the government had been doing to secure the lives of Nigerians trapped in transit.

According to him, the government has been doing a lot to help Nigerian citizens wherever they are having challenges.

He said the government had already evacuated no fewer than 1,000 voluntary returnees from Libya between 2015 and 2016.

Onimode said 325 returnees were evacuated in May 2015 while 669 were evacuated four times in 2016.

According to him, 175, 160, 172 and 162 returnees were evacuated from Libya, in August, October, and December 2016 respectively.

Onimode told the official that most of the returnees were from Delta and Edo and aged between 16 and 22, adding that there were cases of infants being accompanied by their mothers.

He said that there were also cases of injured persons that were evacuated and returned to the country, stressing that such people were properly profiled by the Nigerian Immigration Service.

source: Xinhua