The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, has confirmed plans and date to evacuate over 2,000 Nigerians in crisis-hit Sudan this morning.
This came on the day management of Air Peace expressed its willingness to evacuate Nigerians stranded in the Horn of Africa country free of charge.
This is even as Chairman/CEO of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, NIDCOM, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, also yesterday encouraged Nigerian students in the war-torn country to remain in their universities to avert danger.
Recall that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffery Onyeama, in an interview has said that the only option remaining for Nigerians to be evacuated out of Sudan was through land, as the airport in the capital, Khartoum, had been shut, adding that the federal government was working with the Egyptian authorities to make this possible but didn’t say when the evuacuation would commence.Bu
Later speaking in an interview yesterday, the Director, Special Duties, National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA, Onimode Bandele, said: “The truth is nobody has been evacuated yet. I just spoke to the ambassador, Olaniyan, in Khartoum a few minutes ago.
“It is true that there are plans to get buses to start moving tomorrow morning (today). And as I speak to you, the Director General, National Emergency Management Agency, Mustapha Habib, is already in Cairo because that is the window we are looking at.”
According to him, the movement is to be perfected between the Nigerian embassy in Khartoum and the NEMA director-general.
On how many Nigerians to be evacuated from the troubled country, Bandele stated that evacuation of a few thousand citizens was in the works.
“Our projection was that most students and others who want to evacuate are about 5,000. But with my discussion with the ambassador this morning (yesterday), the plan is for about 2,650-2,800 to move immediately, including families of embassy staff.
As these plans continue, we’ll be able to update you with the actual figure and the exact time of departure from Khartoum to Cairo,” he said.
Also yesterday, the management of Air Peace expressed its willingness to evacuate Nigerians stranded in Sudan free of charge.
The airline noted that Nigerian students and others stranded in Sudan needed help and would receice same should the federal government give it the nod to conduct the airlift.
It would be recalled that the airline in 2019, deployed flights to evacuate Nigerians in South Africa during the heat of the xenophobic attack against Africans living in that country.
Chairman of Air Peace, Allen Onyema, who disclosed this, said Nigerians stranded in the crisis-ridden country could be moved to a neigbouring country where the airline could evacuate them.
Source; Vanguard News
