The acting Coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, has received another batch of Libyan returnees on Thursday night at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, late on Thursday night. They are 161 in number from Mtiga in Libya.
He said the returnees were brought via Al Buraq Air Boeing 737 aircraft with flight number UZ 189 and registration number 5A-DMG. The Nigerians were brought by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and European Union on the platform of the Assisted Voluntary Returnees (AVR) Programme. Farinloye also said that the returnees comprised of 48 female adults, four female children, five female infants as well as 102 adult males, one male child and one infant male.
According to reports by News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), other agencies that received the returnees included the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). Farinloye said: “This batch brought the total number of voluntary returnees from Libya to 14,045, which is made up of 8,200 males and 5,845 females.” One of the returnees, an indigene of Akure, Ondo State, who preferred anonymity, while narrating her ordeal, said she was 19 years when she left Nigeria.
