Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The federal government has said 95 per cent of the 2,518 Nigerians evacuated from war-torn Sudan are students. Permanent Secretary, Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Dr. Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, disclosed this yesterday while briefing the media on the winding up of emergency evacuation exercise for Nigerians caught in the middle of the crisis in the North African country.
Sani-Gwarzo, who is also the chairman of the Situation Room on the evacuation exercise, said apart from the students, the other categories of returnees were footballers, diplomats, businessmen, families, and the infirmed.
He said six of the students were taken to hospitals and discharged before they reunited with their respective families.
Sani-Gwarzo said, “All Nigerians students have arrived home alive, safe and with dignity and that is something worthy of celebration. We are very impressed with the resilience of the students that went through the excruciating difficulties in Sudan.”
He said the committee involved in the evacuation exercise similarly considered the education of the students and intended to establish a consultative forum under the leadership of the various agencies on how to help the students have a smooth transition into new opportunities that would allow them to conclude their educational careers without difficulty.
He assured, “We realised that many of those students are in the final year. In fact, some of them were supposed to write their final papers in the last few days of April before the war broke out. We will not leave these students to their fate.”
Sani-Gwarzo also disclosed that the federal government planned to come out with a Standard Operating Procedure that would guide future evacuation responses. He added that there were other categories of Nigerians remaining in Sudan, including recent travellers and many generations of families, who had lived in the country for several decades dating back to 200 years.
He said some of those stranded people had indicated a willingness to return to Nigeria, and that a committee was currently screening them in Sudan, before they would be brought back home.
