Tunisia repatriates 90 Nigerians, including 14 minors

The Nigerians were received in Lagos by NEMA.

No fewer than 90 stranded Nigerians, including 14 minors, were on Tuesday repatriated from Tunisia by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).

The deportees included a year-old and a five -month-old.

The IOM repatriated them with the support of the Tunisian Government.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) was one of the agencies that received the deportees at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos.

The South-West Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, Iyiola Akande, told newsmen at MMIA that the agency planned to rehabilitate and re-integrate the deportees into the Nigerian society.

“We will take the minors to the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons for re-orientation and rehabilitation,’’ he said.

He said that NEMA would provide the others with food, water and N5, 000, each, for transport to go to any part of the country they would wish to reside.

“This is an emergency. Ordinarily, NEMA will not be involved,” he said.

The deportees were received at the cargo section of the MMIA.

They were brought in at 2.30 a.m. by a cargo aircraft with registration number 320-214117Y.

The IOM is an inter-governmental organisation established in 1951 as the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration (ICEM) to help to re-settle people displaced by World War II.

It is now committed to promoting humane and orderly migration for the benefit of all. It does so by providing services and advice to governments and migrants.

(NAN)