President Muhammadu Buhari’s government disclosed on Wednesday that $1.2 million (about N560 million when converted to Nigerian currency) had been spent to evacuate Nigerians stranded in Sudan to safe places by road.
This is as the federal government make further arrangements to repatriate the citizens back home.
Giving an update on the evacuation process on Wednesday (today), the Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Zubairu Dada, told State House correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that no Nigerian had died in the fight between military factions in Sudan so far.
“We are confident we shall not lose any life in this exercise to evacuate stranded Nigerians,” Daily Trust quoted the Minister saying.
Dada said the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and staff of the Nigerian commission in Egypt and Ethiopia are currently on the ground at the Egyptian border in Aswan to receive close to 40 luxury buses conveying Nigerians who had left the Sudanese capital, Khartoum by road.
Speaking further, the Minister said the Saudi Arabia government had already assisted in evacuating some Nigerians through the sea, a development he said was commended by the federal government.
Addressing journalists also, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the process started after the federal government had overcome some challenges, adding that it would take a couple of days to evacuate stranded Nigerians.
He affirmed that $1.2 million had been spent so far on the current effort to move them by road. Onyeama said once they were safely moved to Egypt, other arrangements would be effected to airlift them back to Nigeria.
Both Ministers said women and children would be given priority before diplomats who were equally involved in the evacuation logistics.
They said the Nigerian government was leveraging the 72 hours cease-fire window given by the Sudanese government to evacuate as many Nigerians as possible.
