…Returnees responsible for their flight fees
The 2,000 Nigerians stranded abroad as a result of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are to be airlifted back in batches of 200 and will be quarantined in isolation centres for 14 days before they are released to go home.
Affirming that the airlifting will start next week, Foreign Affairs Minister, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, said in Abuja Tuesday that two airlines have agreed to bring back the stranded citizens at affordable rates.
Onyeama also explained that the decision to have them return in batches was as a result of insufficient beds at the isolation centres.
Official statistics show that the prospective returnees are scattered in 75 countries including United Kingdom (466); United Arab Emirate (253); China (229); U.S. (163); Turkey (160); Egypt (115); India (92); Malaysia (84) and Cyprus (72).
Others also include Indonesia (35); Cameroon (20); Germany (10); Italy (eight); Australia (six); France (three); Jordan (13); Ghana (32); Ukraine (15); Saudi Arabia (35); South Africa (39); Sudan (18); Pakistan (14); Oman (five); Philippines (three); Poland (three) and Qatar (four), among others.
Assuring that adequate arrangements were being made for the evacuation and quarantine of the returnees, the Foreign Minister however said that the returnees are to pay for the cost of the airlifting.
According to him, “we have just signed and agreed with two airlines, we negotiated what we feel is very good rates. Since the evacuees are expected to pay, we wanted to get as good a deal as possible. Now, that’s done.
“The next challenge is accommodation; everything has to be absolutely ready. We are actually determined when we start that everything should go very smoothly and so, we really want to take all the necessary steps to ensure that would be the case.
“We are looking at 200 evacuees we can accommodate at a time. Since they are going to be there for two weeks, it means we have to bring 200 back for a period of 14 days before we can bring in another 200 both Abuja and for Lagos. We also have to look at the cities.
“The most important part at this stage is to secure the planes to bring them back and we have now done that. So, hopefully, if we can tie up the other loose ends, we hope to start maybe towards the end of next week.
“We have to put all the precautions we can to minimize that kind of incident, having mechanisms to see what kind of symptoms that are displayed by the intending passengers. We’ll now choose which countries we want to start with.”
