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Ukraine War: Another Batch of 31 Stranded Nigerians Arrive
Michael Olugbode
Another 31 Nigerians stranded in Ukraine arrived in the country yesterday.Since the Nigerian government started evacuation of its stranded citizen from Ukraine which has been under Russia military attacks in the last two weeks, about 2,000 persons have been evacuated.
Despite the evacuation, which is now the seventh batch from countries bordering Ukraine, there are still many Nigerians trapped in the Eastern European country.
The latest evacuees arrived from Romania on board a Turkish Airline commercial flight by 6.30am.
The Nigerian government had paid for the seats in the flight to accommodate the stranded Nigerians.
On their arrival at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, the evacuees were received by the government delegation led by Amb. Bolaji Akinremi, Director Consular and Legal, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Akinremi revealed that many more stranded Nigerians will be evacuated within the week.
Speaking on the latest batch of Nigerians to arrive from Ukraine, he said: “ The 1 arrived from Romania and they are all students and Nigerians based in Ukraine. They came on a commercial flight because their number was not that much. We have thirty one of them. Actually thirty-five should have arrived, but about four of them could not make it to the airport. But they will join the next batch.
“What we are actually doing is to make sure that the number is sizable so that they come by chartered flight but if their number is not sizable to warrant them to take a chartered flight then they come by commercial.
‘This is not the first evacuees to come on commercial. Just that they are thirty and above. Others have been coming five, ten and they have come in a large number. By the record that we have which is verifiable with the immigration at the airport, we have 350 that had come in through commercial flights paid for by the government.”