The Lagos State Territorial Officer of NEMA, Alhaji Idris Abubakar Muhammed, recently said that, the figure of Nigerian Returnees from Libya, increasedbb to 322 within a space of 72 hours.
Muhammed who received the Returnees on behalf of the Director General said that the returnees comprise of men, women and children, who voluntarily returned from Sabha, a city that is about 774 kilometres to Tripoli, the Libyan Capital. They came aboard the Al Buraq Air with flight number UZ389/03 and registration number 5A-WAC at about 4:10 pm.
After profiling, Alhaji Idris gave the breakdown of the returnees as 62 adult female, 18 female children and 11 female infants, along with 48 adult male, 14 male children and 8 infant male, in the Voluntary Assisted Repatriation by International Organisation for Migration IOM and special assistance from European Union, with funds for the evacuation and reintegration of the Returnees.
One of the returnee, Adaeze Nweze, from Imo State, claimed that she left Nigeria in 2015 due to hardship without the consent of her husband.
The mother of three said, the journey to Libya costs her about N1.6m paid to an agent.
The Returnee who was pregnant at that time said she had tried to abort the pregnancy on six occasions but this did not work out, after which she gave birth to a set of twins though one of the babies, a boy later died.
She urged Nigerian Government to find a way of blocking the chances of Nigerians who travelled through unapproved routes. She said,”Libya journey usually costs about N3m and many Nigeria girls are killed. I witnessed a situation where 10 of my friends were killed with guns and buried in the forest. I am in serious pains, because a boy, Gift, who happened to be the only child of his parents was killed and the parents are unaware of his untimely death”.
