A total of 123 Nigerians evacuated by the Federal Government from Ukraine arrived at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, yesterday.
The evacuees, among them an infant, were airlifted from Poland onboard Air Peace Flight that touched down at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, at 1:20am, yesterday.
The Federal Government’s team led by the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and other agencies under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development received them.
Also present were representatives of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Port Health Services and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
Addressing the evacuees on behalf of the Director General of NEMA, Mustapha Habib Ahmed, the Director of Search and Rescue, Air Commodore Edward Kolawole Adedokun, welcomed them back to the country and outlined the processes of their documentation before exiting from the airport.
Also speaking, an official of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abdulrahman Terab, assured them that arrangements had been made to support them with transport subsidy of USD$100 to their various locations.
Meanwhile, telecommunications firm, MTN, in partnership with the NiDCOM, has offered the returnees more humanitarian aid to ease their premature return to the country.
NiDCOM in a tweet, yesterday, disclosed that “1,199 have been evacuated so far from Ukraine.”
It was gathered that the “returnees are also getting a free SIM card loaded with N5,000 airtime to allow them reach their family members courtesy of a partnership between NiDCOM and MTN.”
Sources further revealed that the returnees would be getting free MTN SIMs with an XtraTalk bundle worth N19, 500 talk time and 1.5GB of data.(The Guardian)
