The first group of Nigerians stranded in Sudan reportedly arrived in Egypt on Thursday evening.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), confirmed this while responding to a tweet.
According to her, the first set of buses carrying citizens arrived late in Aswan after the border had already been closed, but they are expected to leave early in the morning and proceed to the airport.
The first set has arrived at the Aswan border in Egypt but the border is already closed. They will leave early morning and then proceed to the airport, Dabiri-Erewa noted.
WITHIN NIGERIA understands that the NiDCOM boss revealed this while replying to one [@owolabitaiwo] who said on the microblogging platform that there shouldn’t have been any problem after such bogus money was used for this emergency evacuation.
We can’t spend $1.2mln on buses for a simple drive-through and have cases of abandonment anywhere.
It’s not head-off ooooh, the citizen said.
Sudan: N560 Million Spent To Evacuate Nigerians – FG Claims
Earlier on Wednesday, the Federal Government revealed that $1.2 million (about N560 million in Nigerian currency) had been spent to transport Nigerians stranded in Sudan to safe locations by road.
Giving an update on the evacuation process yesterday, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, that no Nigerian had died in the fighting between military factions in Sudan so far.
We are confident we shall not lose any life in this exercise to evacuate stranded Nigerians, Dada said.
According to Dada, the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and staff from the Nigerian commissions in Egypt and Ethiopia are currently on the ground in Aswan, Egypt, to receive close to 40 luxury buses carrying Nigerians who had left the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, by road.
Speaking further, the Minister stated that the Saudi government had already assisted in the evacuation of some Nigerians via the sea, a development he praised on behalf of the federal government.
Speaking to journalists, Geoffrey Onyeama, Minister of Foreign Affairs, said the process began after the federal government overcame some challenges, and that it would take a few days to evacuate stranded Nigerians.
He confirmed that $1.2 million had already been spent on the current effort to transport them by road. Onyeama stated that once they were safely transported to Egypt, other plans would be made to airlift them back to Nigeria.
Both Ministers stated that women and children would be prioritized over diplomats, who were also involved in the evacuation logistics.