The Nigerians in Diaspora Commission announced on Thursday that the first group of Nigerians fleeing Sudan should arrive in Nigeria on Friday, barring any last-minute alterations.
At the 70th State House Ministerial Briefing, which was held at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja and was organized by the Presidential Communications Team, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chair of NiDCOM, revealed this information to journalists.
Dabiri-Erewa declared that 13 buses carrying Nigerian students to the Egyptian border at Aswan, where they will be flown to Nigeria, had left two institutions in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan.
She claimed that the Army and the Rapid Support Forces had been alerted by the Nigerian embassy in Sudan to secure the evacuees’ safe passage.
However, she noted that logistics challenges escalated when more Nigerians who had not been earlier documented for the exercise suddenly expressed interest to return home upon sighting some of the 40 busses.
Dabiri-Erewa revealed that although at least 5,500 Nigerian students are currently schooling in Sudan, the Nigerian population in the Horn country is about three million.
Speaking after Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the evacuation process is part of the government’s effort to repatriate Nigerian citizens stranded there since fighting broke out between the Military and the Rapid Support Forces on April 15.