The first set of Nigerian evacuees from war-torn Sudan will arrive the country on Friday, barring any unforeseen circumstances.
Chairman/CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Honourable Abike Dabiri-Erewa, said this in Abuja, today.
She said a total of 13 out of the 40 vehicles hired to transport the stranded Nigerians evacuated by the Federal Government from the troubled Sudan have left since Wednesday.
Honourable Dabiri-Erewa stated this in a press release e-signed by the NiDCOM Head of Media, Public Relations and Protocols Unit, Abdur-Rahman Balogun.
She said the 13 buses moved to border town of Aswan, Egypt where both the Nigerian Embassy staff in Egypt and the Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will receive the evacuees.
She said 10 of those buses transported Nigerians from universities in Khartoum, while the remaining three buses were dispatched to El- Razi University to convey them to the border town in Egypt.
Dabiri-Erewa debunked allegations of segregation and discrimantion in the evacuation process.
She explained that children and women were given priority among the evacuees as they were profiled for administrative purposes.
The NiDCOM boss said a Boeing 777 from Airpeace Airline will depart Lagos this evening and transport the first batch of the evacuees home on Friday.
She assured Nigerians that all registered evacuees to be evacuated home will all be facilitated irrespective of their status, gender and state.
The NiDCOM boss acknowledged that there is a huge population of Nigerian students in Sudan.
This was as she disclosed that there were millions of other Nigerians doing their legitimate businesses and residing in the war-torn country peacefully.
She also allayed the fears of the Nigerian evacuees being attacked by the Sudanese warlords.
She said the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, had already secured the understanding of the two Sudanese warlords before the transportation of the Nigerian evacuees by road.
