Another One hundred and twenty-three (123)Nigerians who fled Ukraine amid the invasion by Russia have been brought back home.
The latest batch of stranded Nigerians was evacuated from Warsaw, the capital city of Poland where they had fled to days after Russia invaded Ukraine
They returned to Nigeria aboard an Air Peace plane with registration number 9HSLF which arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja at about 1:20am on Friday.
The evacuees comprise 122 adults and one infant, a further breakdown of the returnees shows that 75 of them are males and the remaining 48 others are females.
Officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and that of other relevant government agencies were already on the ground to receive the returnees.
Following their arrival, the evacuees were subjected to the usual procedures such as documentation and test for COVID-19.
Thereafter, they were given the sum of $100 each to cover their transportation fare from the airport to their destinations in various parts of the country.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairman of the Nigerians In Diaspora Commission NIDCOM who confirmed their return to Nigeria, shared photos of them at the airport and also mentioned that a SIM Card with N5000 airtime was given to each returnee as well as $100.
”We welcome another set of evacuees from Ukraine who just arrived Abuja airport through Poland , via AirPeace . 122 on board , with an infant. 1076 had previously been brought back home
Returnees were presented with SIM cards loaded with 5,000 Naira airtime to allow them reach their family members courtesy of a partnership between NiDCOM and Mtn, (@nidcom_gov&@MTNNG) and 100 dollars transport fare from the Federal Government of Nigeria” she wrote.
No fewer than 5,000 Nigerians, the majority of whom are students, are estimated to be living in Ukraine before the invasion.
In a bid to ensure the return of Nigerians stranded in Ukraine, the Federal Government activated an evacuation exercise following the approval of $8.5 million by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The first batch of returnees arrived on Friday last week and so far, about 1,200 Nigerians have been evacuated from Romania, Poland, and Hungary where many of them had been taking refuge.
