The federal government said it spent the sum of $1.2 million to hire buses to transport stranded citizens from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital to Egypt, from where they would be airlifted to Nigeria.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey
Onyeama, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the Federal
Executive Council on Wednesday.
Giving an update on the situation in warring
Sudan as regards the evacuation of Nigerian citizens, the minister said, “You
recall that the main challenge we had was, first of all, securing the
authorisation of the Sudanese government and then security support for the
convoy. This is because it has been decided that we will transport or convey
Nigerian to the Egyptian border Aswan.
“We are liaising with our embassy in Egypt as
well so we have been able to overcome these challenges and we have started the
process which we are very happy about. $1.2 million is what we’re being charged
for all the 40 buses.
“We have huge transport luxury buses made
available to us to transport our citizens to the Egyptian border. Of course,
you know, because of the risks involved and so many other things, a lot of
people are going to also take advantage; you’re going to hike up the price. We
saw that the French convoy was attacked and so forth. It was difficult
procuring these buses. But we had to do it because you know Nigerian lives
matter to us.”
Zubairu Dada, the Minister of State for
Foreign Affairs, said no Nigerian life has been lost in Sudan since the war
started on April 15. Dada said the government was determined to evacuate as
many Nigerians as possible during the 72-hour window provided by the Sudanese
government.
It was reported earlier on Wednesday that
several buses to evacuate over 4,000 stranded Nigerian students had arrived in
Sudan to begin the journey by road to Egypt.
It was
reported on Tuesday evening reported that the federal government said there was
an ongoing plan to ensure Nigerian nationals stranded in Sudan due to the
ongoing conflict in the North-East African country were evacuated on Wednesday
morning.
Sudan was thrown into turmoil on April 15
when the country's army and paramilitary groups went to war in a battle for
domination.
The conflict has claimed hundreds of lives.
Many countries have successfully evacuated
their nationals from the northeastern country including France, the United
Kingdom, the United States, Germany, and Cyprus.
The federal government had also warned
Nigerian nationals in Sudan not to travel to neighbouring borders without the
assistance of the government or any of its agencies, urging them to remain calm
as it (the government) was taking the appropriate measures to ensure their
smooth evacuation.
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