Ukraine-Russia War: FG Begins To Airlift 2,000 Nigerians

The federal government has announced its readiness to begin evacuation of about 2,000 Nigerians who have fled the war in Ukraine to neighbouring countries from Wednesday.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, made this known in an interview on a Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme.

Onyeama explained that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved funds for the airlines to evacuate Nigerians.

When asked if the number of evacuees was about 2,000, and when the evacuation would take place, he said, “Wednesday hopefully…Air Peace and Max Air.”

He  said there were about 8,000 Nigerians in Ukraine, 5,000 of whom were students, adding that the Federal Government had tipped Air Peace and Air Max to airlift the Nigerians who wanted to be evacuated.

He had earlier said: “We made Romania the hub and over a thousand Nigerians have crossed there. Poland has about 250, Budapest in Hungary has a similar number, Slovakia is rising rapidly. It is also around 200. There are some Nigerians in a place called Sumy close to the Russian border.

“I have been in touch with the ambassador. There are about 150 of them who are looking to cross into Russia and we have asked the ambassador in Russia to try and get a permit for them to transit to Russia and hopefully by Wednesday we will start deploying planes to start bringing the Nigerians.”

Onyeama, however, noted that it was not the sole duty of the federal government to evacuate Nigerians that were stranded abroad because this was not the global practice. He said people who use their own money to travel abroad ought to be able to return home by themselves.