NigerianFLIGHTDECK Travel and Business Reportage
A total of 174 men and 67 women with three children and three infants making a total of 241 Nigerians arrived Nigeria from Libya yesterday at the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport(MMA), Lagos on board a Libyan Airlines A333 –200 with registration number SA –LAR.
This is more than the 220 Nigerians reported by our medium on Monday .
The Nigerians according to the Head of Lagos Office, International Organisation for Migration (IOM), Dr Nahashon Thuo, said that some of them were trying to cross to Europe but failed and that they were arrested by the Libyan Immigration while others committed immigration offenses while in the country.
He further stated that they were brought by IOM when they signaled their interest to return home.
Dr Thuo, said that 241 people were voluntary returnees who were brought back from Libya on their own volition.
Also speaking, the Director of Relief and Rehabilitation National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Aliyu Sambo, said that the Voluntary Returnees were brought back to the country by IOM because they said that they want to return to Nigeria.
The Director stated that the Voluntary Returnees, who were in track suit provided by IOM would be given $50 after the agency officials must have talked to them.
One of the returnees, who was assisted into a waiting NEMA ambulance told journalists that he was shot in Libya by the man he was working for, adding that it was good he came back.
The returnees on alighting from the Libyan Airlines were directed into a waiting coastal bus that will convey them to where documentation would take place.
Apart from very few of the returnees, who were still looking good, majority of them, carried bushy beards and hairs on their head, looks that suggest that they may have been kept in camps for days before they were airlifted to Nigeria by IOM.
Agency that were on hand to receive the returnees includes Nigeria Immigration Service, (Port Health from the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIPs)
