Forty-eight hours after 257 Nigerians voluntarily returned from Libya, another set of 161 Nigerians on Thursday came back home from the volatile North African country where they had been stranded enroute Europe.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that their aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 with Registration Number 5A-DMG, landed at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos at 7.37pm.
The returnees were assisted back to Nigeria by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union (EU).
They comprised 78 female adults and two infants, 71 male adults, five teenage boys and five baby boys.
Two of the returnees had medical cases and were promptly taken away on an ambulance for treatment.
The returnees were handed over to the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhaji Mustapha Maihajja, who was represented by the South West Zonal Coordinator of the agency, Alhaji Suleiman Yakubu.
Maihajja told the returnees that the Federal Government was working with various state governments to ensure that they were well taken care of.
He noted that the previous returnees were received and accommodated in befitting hotels at strategic locations because of their dignity and personal safety in accordance with international best practices.
One of the returnees, 21-year-old Miss Patience Ubosa, told newsmen that she was a fashion design apprentice in Benin before she was lured into the perilous journey to Europe via Libya.
Ubosa said her final destination was France, to join her sister who financed the journey which was eventually aborted after a fight broke out on the migrants’ boats in the middle of the Mediterranean sea.
She said the rival fishermen groups were dislodged by security operatives while the migrants were all taken to camp,
where they were taken care of before being brought back to Nigeria.
NAN reports that other agencies who received the returnees were the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) , the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Police. (NAN)
