On Wednesday, the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari revealed that $1.2 million (approximately N560 million in Nigerian currency) had been spent to transport Nigerians who were stranded in Sudan to safe locations by road.
After the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, provided an update on the evacuation process on Wednesday (yesterday), noting that no Nigerians had been killed in clashes between military factions in Sudan up to this point.
“We are confident we shall not lose any life in this exercise to evacuate stranded Nigerians,” Daily Trust quoted the Minister saying.
Dada said the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and staff of the Nigerian commission in Egypt and Ethiopia are currently on the ground at the Egyptian border in Aswan to receive close to 40 luxury buses conveying Nigerians who had left the Sudanese capital, Khartoum by road.
Speaking further, the Minister said the Saudi Arabia government had already assisted in evacuating some Nigerians through the sea, a development he said was commended by the federal government.
Speaking to journalists, Geoffrey Onyeama, the minister of foreign affairs, said that the process had begun after the federal government had overcome some obstacles. He added that it would take a few days to evacuate the stranded Nigerians.
He confirmed that the current effort to move them by road had already cost $1.2 million.Once they were safely relocated to Egypt, according to Onyeama, other arrangements would be made to have them airlifted back to Nigeria.
Women and children would be given priority over diplomats who were equally involved in the logistics of the evacuation, according to both Ministers.
They claimed that in order to evacuate as many Nigerians as possible, the Nigerian government was taking advantage of the 72-hour cease-fire window provided by the government of Sudan.
Ada Peter
