Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says that it received another batch of 132 stranded Nigerians from Libya on Tuesday night.
The returnees arrived the Cargo Wing of Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos aboard a chartered Buraq Air aircraft with registration number 5A-DMG at about 7.30p.m.
The Coordinator of the Lagos Territorial Office of NEMA, Alhaji Idris Muhammed, who received the returnees, told journalists on Wednesday in Lagos that the new batch arrived barely 24 hours after another batch of 180 Nigerians returned to the country from Libya on Monday.
Muhammed said the returnees comprised 58 female adults, two female children and four female infants, 59 male adults, five male children and six male infants.
He explained that the returnees came back from four major cities in Libya – Alkrarim , Misursta, Benghazi and Ghanfoda, where they had been stranded en route Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.
Muhammed thanked the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and European Union (EU) for facilitating the return of the Nigerians and assured them that the Federal Government was ready to work with development partners to create a conducive environment for young Nigerians.
This, he hopes, will help to curb the scourge of irregular migrations and the desperation of young people to fend for themselves.
Muhammed announced 12,974 Nigerians had voluntarily returned to the country from Libya in two years.
According to him, the returnees were assisted back from Libya by the EU and the IOM Voluntary Assisted Returnees Programme, which began in April 2017.
Muhammed said the support and cooperation towards the programme by all levels of government in the country showed that all hands were on desk to find a lasting solution to the issue.
In his remarks, the EU Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr. Ketil Karlsen, who witnessed the 65th flight since the programme started, said that migration should be aspiration and not desperation.
“Migration, mobility and curiosity to know new places are as old as human kind itself and are natural.
“What is not natural is the kind of irregular migrations that leads to wrong purposes and put people’s lives at risk,” he said.
Local media reports said that the ambassador commended all the national and international partners, who had been participating in the success story of the exercise.
He lauded the excellent tasks of IOM in the process of identifying, locating mobilising and convincing the stranded Nigerians to voluntarily return home.
Karlsen also praised the UN Migration Agency for initiating the reintegration attractions like the start-up capitals, vocational training and psychological services that had added value to the returnees.
He advised that the root causes of irregular migrations must be addressed.
GIK/APA