The third batch of 132 stranded Nigerian nationals evacuated from the war-prone Sudan on Saturday arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja at 1:31 pm.
The returnees airlifted by Tarco Aviation flight from Port Sudan were received at the Hajj Terminal of the Airport by the Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Dr Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, Director General, National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Habib Ahmed, and Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCom), Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
While addressing the returnees, Dr Sani-Gwarzo disclosed that: “more aircrafts will go. Our limitation has not been the ability to send aircrafts but the fact that large-bodied aircraft cannot go to Port Sudan at the moment except smaller ones.
“Otherwise, you would have seen about 500 at a go but we are still working with the Sudanese Government and those countries along the route to make sure that large-bodied aircraft can go. With that, I assure you in less than 24 hours, we will finish the evacuation.
While giving update on the methodology adopted for the airlifting, he said: “There are three people that are sick, I just interacted with them and we are taking them to the hospital. One has a wound in his hand and two others have severe abdominal pain due to ulcer.
“We sent them to the hospital not because their condition is bad but we want maximum best for them. From the hospital, they will proceed home because they look stable but we don’t want to take any chance.”
In his remarks, NEMA Director General, Mustapha Habib Ahmed argued that the decision to prioritize the airlifting of women, children and the sick was deliberate.
He hinted that about 800 students will be airlifted from Aswan tomorrow.
“We have aircraft on ground as we speak, two are in Aswan and our people are on their way to the airport.
“So hopefully, they will take off tomorrow morning and by tomorrow afternoon or evening, we will receive large batch of almost 800 students.
“For Port Sudan, we will continue with the evacuation. TARCO is going back, Azman is going to do back to back because of its 400 seater capacity and we have already started engaging Air Peace to go back because of the 274-seater capacity,” NEMA helmsman assured.
On her part, Chairman of NIDCOM, Hon. Dabiri-Erewa disclosed that the returnees would undergo trauma counselling.
“There will be trauma counselling for all the returnees because they have gone through a lot of trauma.
“Watch out for information on various website of the emergency team on various counselling for everyone. We are talking to Dangote and some other NGOs about that,” she said.
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