Following the ongoing crisis in the war-torn country, 126 Nigerians stranded in Sudan arrived in Abuja on Saturday.
According to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), the returnees arrived at 5:15 p.m. on a Tarco Aircraft ST-TAL B737-300.
Staff from the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, NIDCOM, and NAPTIP, among others, greeted the returnees.
According to NAN, three of the 126 evacuees are students, while the remaining 23 are children.
This brings the total number of stranded Nigerians evacuated to the country to 2,660 in 16 batches since the crisis in Sudan began.
Upon their arrival, the returnees were given N100,000 in cash as well as food and drinks.
On behalf of the federal government, Mr. Mustapha Ahmed, Director-General of NEMA, welcomed the returnees.
Ahmed, who was represented by Dr. Onimode Bandele, Director of Special Duties at NEMA, stated that plans were being made to return more Nigerians who had become stranded in Sudan.
This evacuation started before the end of the last administration, and being a caring government, President Bola Tinubu administration inherited the process and gave us the backing we need to bring them back.
The success we are seeing today is because the Federal Government supported us and the director-general of NEMA has been on top of the situation, getting these flights out of Port Sudan, he said.
Mr. Akwari Henry, a returnee who had stayed in Sudan for six years, appreciated the federal government for bringing them back to the country.
I was playing football for a club in Sudan and I have been there for six years. I do not pray we face this same crisis in Nigeria because the experience has been traumatising.
I looked forward to being invited by football clubs in Nigeria to start life again, he said.
Another returnee, Mrs. Bilqis Bamijoko, also appreciated the federal government for evacuating them back to the country.
Since April when the war began, we have not been ourselves, we could not sleep not to talk of eating good food but I am happy to be back home, she said.
Armed conflict between rival factions of the military government of Sudan began on April 15, when clashes broke out in Khartoum and the Darfur region.