173 Nigerians stranded in Libya return home

By our correspondent

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has confirmed that it received 173 Nigerians assisted to return from Libya, where they had been stranded.

The returnees, who arrived the country in two different flights ON Tuesday, were received by the Coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office, NEMA, Abubakar Muhammed at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

According to Mohammed, the Nigerians were assisted back home by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union (EU) under the Assisted Voluntary Returnees Programme(AVRP) which began in April 2017.

The coordinator, who said that 162 of the returnees arrived from Misrata in a chartered aircraft belonging to Al Buraq Air with registration number 5A-DMG, at 4.52a.m., added that another 11 returnees arrived via a commercial flight from Bengazi at 5.15a.m.

“The profiling of the returnees on arrival indicated that there were 52 female adults, four female children and four female infants as well as 106 male adults, two male children and five male infants.Twenty-one of the returnees had medical issues and were immediately attended to by the medical team on ground,” Mohammed said.

It would be recalled that NEMA had on August 28 received 153 Nigerians stranded Nigerians from Nigeria.

The Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Maihajja, said the returnees were brought by the IOM and European Union on the platform of the AVR programme.