No fewer than 31 Nigerians stranded in Ukraine arrived in the country yesterday.
Ukraine had been under Russia’s military attacks in the last two weeks. The evacuees arrived from Romania on board a Turkish Airline commercial flight by 6.30am.
The flight was paid for by the Federal Government and the evacuees were received by the government delegation led by Director Consular and Legal, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Amb. Bolaji Akinremi.
Akinremi said many more will be evacuated within the week.
He said: “The 31 arrived from Romania and they are students and Nigerians based in Ukraine. They came on a commercial flight because their number was not that much. We have 31 of them. Actually, 35 should have arrived, but about four of them could not make it to the airport. But they will join the next batch.
“What we are actually doing is to make sure that the number is sizable so that they come by chartered flight. But if their number is not sizable to warrant them to take a chartered flight, then they come by commercial.
“This is not the first evacuees to come on commercial. Others have been coming in five, 10 and other large number. By the record that we have which is verifiable with the immigration at the airport, we have 350 that had come in through commercial flights paid for by the government.”