Another set of 270 returnees from Libya arrived the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Lagos on Tuesday night.
This is the largest number of stranded Nigerians returned in one evacuation so far, according to findings by our correspondent.
This brought to 688 the number of returnees evacuated from Libya in one week.
It would be recalled that on Tuesday last week, 257 returnees arrived the country while another batch of 161 returned on Thursday and were received by officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons (NCFRMI), among others.
Among the returnees were adults, children and infants who were provided with refreshment and stipend upon arrival to enable them return to their respective destinations. They were conveyed in a Libyan Airlines aircraft.
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The breakdown showed that most of the returnees were female. The figure obtained by our correspondent indicated that there were 216 female adults, 13 female children and five female infants.
For the male category, there were 27 adults, five children and four infants making a total of 270; the highest so far repatriated since the commencement of the exercise facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) almost two years ago.
It was however learnt that more people are still being expected home next week amidst rising humanitarian challenges in the North African country which is currently experiencing internal strife.
South West Coordinator of NCFRMI, Margaret Ukaegbu in a chat with our correspondent warned Nigerian would-be migrants to stay away from Libya, saying, “The situation in Libya is very bad and IOM is trying to evacuate as many voluntary returnees as possible because this is like an emergency evacuation”.
