About 292 Nigerians have been evacuated from Saudi Arabia and are now in Abuja.
The aircraft conveying the returnees, it was gathered, arrived late on Tuesday at the Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, in Abuja.
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, confirmed this development, on Wednesday, via his Twitter handle.
He said a chunk of the repatriated nationals were nursing mothers and children, adding that they have been camped in hotels to observe the 14-day compulsory quarantine supervised by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).
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“We received 292 evacuees stranded in Saudi Arabia yesterday. The Saudi Government transported them to Abuja. A large number are nursing mothers and children and they are all comfortably settled in hotels under the mandatory 14 days quarantine,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, the minister has said Nigerians in France, who plan to fly to Cotonou in Benin Republic and then access the country via its land border can do so.
He stated this during a briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja on Tuesday evening.
Onyeama, however, said the country would absorb evacuees based on the resources available for their 14-day mandatory quarantine.
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“If they have already bought their tickets and have boarded or about to board the flight, when they get to Cotonou, we will as in the past liaise with our Charge d’Affaires, and look at the capacity available to process them from Cotonou.
“But there’s certainly no guarantee that they would’ve immediate access to the country until such a time as they can be absorbed,” he stated.
