A special federal government team has left Nigeria for Libya on a fact finding mission in the wake slave trading in Nigerians amidst possible mass evacuation of Nigerians trapped in Libya.
The team left Abuja for Tripoli aboard a Nigeria Air force Flight N5FGS at 9.20am Wednesday morning.
The team, led by foreign affairs minister Geoffrey Onyeama, includes director-general of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Julie Okah-Donli, and the Senior Special Assistant to the President of Diaspora Matters, Abike Dabiri Erewa.
They will meet with Libyan authorities, and Nigerian officials and citizens resident in Libya, as well as international organisations working on migration issues in Libya.
The visit comes after reports Nigerian migrant living in slave-like conditions and being auctioned for slave labour in Libya, revealed in a CNN report.
President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered Nigerians in Libya be evacuated.
Many are suspected to have been victims of human trafficking, and will require proper re-integration into society, said NAPTIP.
“Our counsellors are fully ready to receive the returnees and give them the needed psychosocial assistance for proper reintegration into the society,” said NAPTIP’s Okah-Donli.
“We will also help them with all the necessary tools to sustain themselves including vocational training and education assistance. This will be done with assistance from government, corporate bodies and the international organisations.
“This is not the time for anybody to stand aloof and watch the Federal Government alone do it. All hands must be on deck now, because doing nothing will affect all of us.”
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