Over 200 Nigerians who were stranded in Libya on Tuesday returned home via a flight in Lagos.
They were 253 in total with officials giving the breakdown as 140 women, 102 men and 11 children. They all arrived safely at the International Airport in Lagos.
Officials in Nigeria said the United Nations migration agency International Organisation for Migration (IOM) was instrumental in getting the stranded Nigerians back home.
Local media reported quoted the head of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Maihaja as saying that “We are giving them some stipends. We need to let them realize that the country they left some years ago is not the same country they are meeting today. We have moved ahead and everybody now has equal opportunity to be the best you can be”.
Nationals from many West African countries have had to endure harsh conditions in Libya with some even spending years in prison.
Read: Over hundred Gambians held up in Libya prisons return home
One of the returnees told local media that “They were selling some of us like wood from one guard who will take us to some destination and again sell us to another who will now be our new owner. That will take us again to some distance and say his contract with us has expired and again sell us to another person.”
The IOM this month released a report confirming the story of many migrants being sold in ‘slave market’ in Libya and Niger.
Read: Migrants sold and bought in ‘slave market’ in Libya | Africa Feeds
Today 253 stranded #Nigerian migrants were able to return home from #Libya. This was the atmosphere yesterday at the detention centre: pic.twitter.com/OqaiBK1K1C
— OTHMAN BELBEISI (@OthmanBelbeisi) April 25, 2017
Source: Africafeeds.com
