Stranded Nigerians who are still in Khartoum, Sudan, are in disarray as the drivers of the buses provided by the Federal Government to evacuate them to Egypt have offloaded their luggage and zoomed off.
The Nigerian government had engaged the services of 40 buses to evacuate stranded Nigerians from the troubled country.
Daily Trust understands that 22 buses were yet to leave and were expected to begin the two-day journey to Aswan in Egypt today where the evacuees would be airlifted to Nigeria from.
However, the drivers offloaded their luggage this afternoon and zoomed off after lamenting that they have not received any payment.
“These buses have been in the university premises, that is the International University of Africa (IUA), since 6:00am yesterday.
“The students were in the buses from morning to evening waiting to start the journey to the Egypt border which the drivers refused to move, saying they were not paid.
“So, the students left their lodges at the buses till this morning and the drivers now said they want to go back to their company and are removing the luggage,” said Abdurrasaq Oladokun a Nigerian in Sudan.
He pleaded with the Federal Government to get the drivers paid immediately, adding that “out of the 22 buses that we were given at the IUA, almost 10 to 13 have offloaded our luggage that they didn’t receive any money or alert up till 11:25 am.”
Another stranded Nigerian who spoke in Hausa in a trending video on social media said: “As I am speaking now, we are no longer in the buses, the drivers said nobody called them or texted them to talk about payment.
“Our parents and relatives should know our current situation, we are in a terrible situation.
“We are here at Jami’at al Razi while some are in the International University of Africa with 20 buses to evacuate them but the drivers here told their colleagues to also offload them.
“The drivers told us that they only obeyed directives from their company but they were not given anything. As you can see this is our situation now.”
A ceasefire declared by the warring parties is set to expire on Sunday midnight as their deadly conflict continued for a third week despite warnings of a slide towards catastrophic civil war.
Hundreds of people have been killed and thousands wounded since the beginning of a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on April 15.
