What is believed to be the final set of Nigerian nationals, including students stranded in Sudan owing to the ongoing war in the Northeast African country, have been evacuated by bus to Egypt where they can be airlifted to Nigeria.
This was disclosed in a video shared with Bellnewsonline.com by Abdurazak Olaniyi Oladotun, a teacher who was stranded in Sudan.
In the video, Oladotun said their journey began on Saturday evening.
“Good evening to all Nigerians. Good evening colleagues. We thank God all the vehicles have arrived. We are on the buses now. We are about to set off. We solicit your prayer for a safe journey. The journey is set to take two days. May God make our journey easy,” he said.
On Friday, Bellnewsonline.com reported how Oladotun in a video disclosed that after a set of vehicles left with some Nigerians for Egypt on Wednesday morning, no other vehicle had returned to evacuate others.
Oladotun lamented that there had been lapses in communication with officials. He urged officials at the Nigerian Embassy in Sudan to forgive the youths for the wrongs they might have committed for the sake of the children and pregnant women among them.
Oladotun said he moved to the capital city from the state where he lived for the purpose of evacuation earlier announced by the embassy.
In the video obtained by Bellnewsonline.com on Friday, Oladotun said, “Since five days ago we have been informed that there will be evacuation due to the crisis in Sudan, specifically at the capital city called Khartoum.
“We really appreciated that, we never expected it, it came at the right time. However there have been lapses in communication and when the embassy eventually met with us, they assured us and we were very happy.
“However, afterwards, things have not been going on well. On Wednesday, a set of vehicles left for Egypt. We were promised that another 10 will come at that particular day – Wednesday – but they never showed up.
“The following day, Thursday, which was yesterday, we were promised that 10 vehicles will come in the morning and another 10 will come in the evening. Also, it didn’t show up.”
According to him, the situation became worse when the university where stranded Nigerians were currently staying, African International University, asked them to leave their premises.
“Now today is Friday, the premises where we are is African International University where they have the majority of the Nigerian students. Because of that, other Nigerians have been invited to locate to come around here as you can see there are bags of students.
“Now the major challenge we are having now is, we need to move out of this place. The university staff have given us an ultimatum, that it is enough, that we need to leave. We need to leave, please save us. We have children among us; as you can see, this is one of my sons.”
Oladotun said there were pregnant women among the stranded Nigerians and infants as young as two weeks old.
The Nigerian Air Force and Air Peace, a Nigerian carrier, on Saturday, began the evacuation of some Nigerian nationals from neighbouring Egypt.
This comes a few days after the government arranged for buses to transport its citizens in warring Sudan to neighbouring Egypt where it would be possible to airlift them to Nigeria.