NEMA receives eight children, others repatriated from Sudan

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has received 13 Nigerians, including eight children, from Sudan.

The returnees who arrived through Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport on Ethiopian Airline Aircraft with flight number ET343, were handed over to NEMA and other relief agencies.

NEMA receives 140 Nigerians stranded in Niger Republic

NEMA receives 98 stranded Nigerians from Niger Republic

They included five female adults and eight children (three females and five males) who are from Kano and Jigawa states.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after receiving them, the NEMA Coordinator, Kano Territorial Office, Dr. Nurudden Abdullahi, said the returnees were brought back to Kano by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) initiative on migrant protection and re-integration as well as European Union under the Assisted Voluntary Returnees.

“The returnees were brought back through a voluntary programme for the distress who had left the country to seek greener pastures in various European countries and could not afford to return when their journey became frustrated,” he said.

According to him, the returnees will be trained for four days to be self-reliant and will be given food, toiletries, blankets, mosquito nets, pampers and clothes.

He advised Nigerians to avoid endangering their lives by travelling to seek greener pastures in other countries.

Abdullahi further explained that the agency between May and July had received 367 stranded Nigerians from Agadas (Niger Republic) and trained them in various skills acquisition.

Speaking to Daily Trust, one of the returnees Amina Ibrahim, 60, from Kano State, who is a mother of four said she travelled to Sudan to search for greener pastures.

“I was a business woman before I left Nigeria with people’s N8 million debt with me. I went to Sudan to seek greener pastures thinking that I would be able to get enough money to pay them back and continue with my business. But unfortunately in Sudan, you have to beg before you can get money to eat. I really suffered,” she said.