Thousands of Nigerians stranded in Libya arrive home safely
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says it has assisted more than 7,600 Nigerian migrants to return home safely from Libya between May 2017 and March 2018.
According to information on the UN agency’s website, most recently, 166 Nigerian migrants were supported to leave Libya and safely returned to Nigeria on 28 March. The Libyan returnees include 101 men and 56 women, as well as two boys and seven girls.
Sharing his experience of the Libyan journey, one of the returnees, Dennis from Edo state said: “Although I was told of the danger involved in this journey (but) I thought it was a joke. Many people died in the desert. It was God that saved me.”
Dennis offered advice to Nigerians considering the same route, warning against traveling to Libya.
“I want to use this opportunity to advise my fellow Nigerians not to take that risk. I was warned but I refused to listen. Now I have learned my lessons in a hard way. It is not an event you would like to experience,” Dennis said.
The returned migrants were received by representatives of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the Nigerian Immigration Service, the Police, IOM Nigeria, and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria.
The returns are part of activities under the IOM humanitarian voluntary return programme, run in partnership with the European Union and the Nigerian government.
Speaking about the programme, Abrham Tamrat, IOM’s Programme Manager, said the returns on 28 March was the fifth time this year IOM has chartered a flight to assist Nigerians who are stranded in Libya and would like to return home. Just this year so far, 1,102 Nigerian migrants have been helped to return home safely from Libya.
Enira Krdzalic, the IOM Chief of Mission in Nigeria, stressed the need to “work together to make sure that the migration process is safer and better managed so that migration becomes a genuine, informed choice rather than a desperate leap into the unknown.”
26/04/2018
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