Nigeria begins evacuation of its citizens in Sudan

The Nigerian government, on Wednesday, commenced the evacuation of Nigerians in Sudan.

This was revealed in a tweet by the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM) where it shared a video showing buses parked in line. It also shared a picture of people queued up which it captioned “at the registration point this morning.”

“Last night, the Nigeria Evacuation team in SUDAN received some buses to transport Nigerian Students to nearby borders in Egypt, before airlifting them to Nigeria, this has been sorted by the Federal Government through @nemanigeria and the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan,” NiDCOM tweeted.

NiDCOM added that more buses are arriving this morning and the stranded students will depart today.

The evacuation was initially scheduled to start on Tuesday but did not happen because buses were unable to secure passes to move, a source at the ministry of foreign affairs who did not have permission to speak to the media, told PREMIUM TIMES.

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Another explanation on the WhatsApp group for Nigerians in Sudan said it was due to some logistics issues.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how some Nigerian students studying in Sudan appealed to the Nigerian government for help.

Since the fighting erupted over a week ago, nearly 500 people have been killed and almost 4,100 injured, the UN said.

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Several countries including UK, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, France amongst others have been able to evacuate their citizens from torn Sudan.

Four attempts at a ceasefire failed last week, however, the U.S. was able to broker a partial ceasefire that enabled more countries to evacuate and the Sudanese to run to safety.

There are no signs that the warring parties in Sudan are ready to seriously negotiate an end to fighting, UN envoy to Sudan Volker Perthes told a UN Security Council meeting in New York City on Tuesday.