Eniola Akinkuotu, Abuja
The Special Assistant to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, says the Federal Government and the International Organisation for Migration have repatriated 9, 348 Nigerians from Libya this year.
Dabiri-Erewa said this in a statement by her media aide, Abdurrhaman Balogun, on Sunday.
The President’s aide said the IOM and the Federal Government had identified the detention camps and offered to bring all the willing Nigerians back home.
She said the repatriations were a sequel to pleas by some trapped Nigerians in Libya via a viral video.
In the video, Nigerians were told how they were being tortured to death daily under dehumanising conditions, pleading for an urgent evacuation from the Federal Government and prominent religious leaders in Nigeria.
Dabiri-Erewa said information from the Nigerian embassy in Libya confirmed that the Nigerian migrants had been traced to the Osama detention Centre, Zawiya, Libya where 116 of them had been processed online for repatriation to Nigeria.
“Regrettably, she said 24 of them had refused to come back insisting they must get to Europe,” the statement added.
“Let me reiterate that President Muhammadu Buhari will continue to ensure that all the stranded migrants willing to return are brought back,” she assured.
She said those repatriated were being profiled and enrolled in various technical and vocational training centres with relevant agencies and groups.
Punch
