The Federal Government will, from Wednesday, begin the evacuation of about 2,000 Nigerians who have fled the war in Ukraine to neighbouring countries.
Punch reports that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, who disclosed this in an interview on a Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme, revealed 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 also added that there were about 8,000 Nigerians in Ukraine, 5,000 of whom were students.
He also disclosed that the Federal Government had tipped Air Peace and Air Max to airlift the Nigerians who wanted to be evacuated.
Earlier, Onyeama while briefing the House of Representatives on the evacuation efforts, stated, “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”.