COVID-19: Over 10,000 Citizens Evacuated To Nigeria

The Federal Government has said that over 10,000 Nigerians were evacuated from countries around the world from May to August 2020 as parts of efforts to protect them from the COVID-19 infection.

The commission’s Head of Department, Media and Public Relations, Mr Abdur-Rahman Balogun, stated this in an interview with our correspondent, noting that all the evacuees were taken through the compulsory 14-day isolation in line with COVID-19 protocols, upon their arrival in the country.

The Federal Government, through the collaboration of the NIDCOM, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigerian embassies in the affected countries, began the evacuation flights on Wednesday, May 7.

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The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, at the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja, had said those waiting to be evacuated were in China, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, India, Canada, the Middle East countries, among others.

“So, by God’s grace on Wednesday, May 7, we would start the process of repatriating our nationals from outside the country. There are about 4,000 Nigerians wishing to come back home. If we had our way, we would bring them all back immediately and all at once, but there are various constraints and the biggest constraint is where to quarantine them,” the minister had said.

The Emirates, Ethiopian Airlines, and Air Peace were among the airlines used by the government for the evacuation which lasted for more than three months.