THE first batch of Nigerian students trapped in Sudan following the unrest in the country will likely arrive Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, on the evening of Thursday, April 27, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Agency Manzo Ezekiel disclosed this during an interview with The ICIR on Wednesday, April 26.
Ezekiel said the Nigerian government had begun transporting the first set of students to Aswan, a city in Egypt, from where they will be airlifted to Nigeria.
He also said the students will likely return late on Thursday night due to the distance between the Sudan capital city, Khartoum, and Aswan.
“The government has engaged bus operators’ services that will move these Nigerians out of the warzone to Aswan in Egypt. So the airlift is going to take place from Aswan to Abuja. We are using buses, quite okay, but we are not using buses to convey them from Sudan to Nigeria.
“And the distance between Khartoum and Aswan is roughly 45 hours. So it is quite a long journey. Now, I can confirm that the buses have arrived and as we are speaking now, I believe the first batch of movement must have commenced. So if they have taken off now, it will mean that we should be expecting their arrival at Aswan, maybe tomorrow evening,” he said.
He noted that the stop in Aswan would be brief, after which the journey to Abuja would begin.
“I don’t think they are going to stay there for long because arrangements have been made for their feeding so that as they arrive there, they will be fed, then they will be airlifted to Nigeria. They may arrive tomorrow, but if it is tomorrow, it will be at night.”
Ezekiel said that several technicalities had stalled efforts by the government to evacuate the students earlier.
“The students that we are talking about, they are mostly young people. When you are moving young people in a conflict zone, there is bound to be suspicion one way or the other. You can’t just move young people like that in a war zone without having security cover, at least to take them to the border, then the security in Egypt will take over to escort them to Aswan,” he said.
Chairman, Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa announced via her Twitter handle on Wednesday, April 25, that students had begun boarding the buses that would convey them to Egypt.
“As our students in Sudan queued up orderly to board their buses to Egypt enroute to Nigeria, supervised by Nigerian mission officials in Sudan. Let’s remember them in our prayers as they journey home,” she tweeted.
At least 10,000 Nigerian students and over five million Sudanese of Nigerian origin have been trapped in Sudan following a conflict between the Sudanese armed forces, led by Abdelfattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force under the leadership of Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), at least 400 people have died in the fighting, and almost 3,500 more have been wounded in Khartoum, the western region of Darfur and other states.
The Nigerian embassy created WhatsApp and Telegram platforms for the students and other Nigerians in Sudan for proper coordination and regular updates.
Nigerians can contact the embassy on any of the following numbers: +249 90 765 0702, +234 803 698 1824, +249 90 132 5359, +249 92 440 1217.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via vopara@icirnigeria.org or @ije_le on Twitter.