The first batch of returnees from Sudan have arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.

The returnees touched down onboard a Nigeria Airforce and Air Peace Aircraft at about 11.35pm on Wednesday.

While receiving the evacuees at the Airport, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq said 94 evacuees were flown in by the naval plane C130, while Air Peace had 282 people on-board.

Hajiya Sadiya said the federal government, through support from Dangote group had made available dignity parks and N100,000 stipends to take the evacuees home.

The Federal Commissioner of National Commission for Refugees, Migrant and Internally Displaced Persons, Imaan Sulaiman Ibrahim, said they will be full fledge rehabilitation supports for those in need of it and zonal programmes for evacuees that live outside the FCT to help their recovery process.

Some of the students, Amina , Saadatu Idris and a Businessman, Joseph Ebere who narrated their ordeal said they were happy to have returned alive although their studies and source of income have been cut short.

A parents of one of the evacuees, appreciated the federal government for bringing back the students and urged them to hasten the return of the remaining Nigerians in Sudan.

The Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa said it was a huge relief to receive the returnees, bearing in mind the traumatised experience they went through in Sudan.

Radio Nigeria reports that the Permanent s=Secretary in the Ministry, Dr Nasir Sani-Gwarzo, the Director General of NEMA Mustapha Habib, The Sudan ambassador to Nigeria, Mohamed Yousif Ibrahim Abdelmanna, security officials as well as some family members were at the General Aviation Terminal of the airport to receive the evacuees.

FRCN Abuja / Titilayo Kupoliyi

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