171 Stranded Nigerians Return From Libya

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has received another batch of 171 stranded Nigerians from Libya.

Alhaji Idris Muhammed, Coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office of NEMA, who was represented by Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, Public Information Officer, confirmed the development to newsmen on Friday.

Muhammed said the returnees arrived the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport about 1.10 am on Friday.

He said that they arrived aboard an Al Buraq Airline aircraft with registration number 5A-DMG and flight number UZ 196/25.

According to him, the returnees were brought back by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and European Union under the Assisted Voluntary Returnees (AVR) Programme.

Muhammed added the figure comprised 61 female adults, one female child and five female infants, as well as 98 adult males, one male child and five male infants.

He advised Nigerian youths to be wary of overseas love advances from strangers, noting that this was now one of the tactics being used by human traffickers to lure them outside the country.

The coordinator said the traffickers were now contacting ladies via social media apps, especially Facebook and WhatsApp, and making fake marriage proposals to them, to deceive them into travelling outside Nigeria.

He cited a particular case when a lady sought advice about a man who simply called himself Ali, who claimed to be living in Sudan.

“Upon critical observation, the code number of the caller indicated that it belongs to Libyan code, and the man that makes video calls was an Arab; but he was not making statements for the lady to hear him.

“It was understood that the man cannot communicate in English, but someone behind the scene was responsible for the chatting with the lady,”

NAN quoted him as saying.

Muhammed advised young Nigerians planning to leave the country to make use of the Migrant Resource Centres, jointly set up by the government and the IOM, to know more about their destination countries.

NAIJALOADED had reported that the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) had on March 23, received 195 stranded Nigerians from Libya.

This was reportedly the largest batch of voluntary returnees since the exercise began in April 2017.

NAN reports that NEMA said over 4,900 of the returnees have also been trained in various skill acquisition and empowerment training by IOM through special funding facilitated by the EU.