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A distressed Nigerian student in Sudan has told the BBC that some of her friends are stranded in the desert after a bungled evacuation effort, “because the bus drivers said the Nigerian government did not pay them any money”. The 22-year-old, who asked not to be identified, said that only 10 of the 40 buses promised by the Federal Government arrived in Khartoum yesterday so there wasn’t space for her and others on board. She’s still waiting in the Sudanese capital with a friend and fears telling her parents back home that there is no sign yet of more buses. “I don’t want to break this bad news to them. My mum has been worried.” She is among more than 1,000 students still sheltering at the International University of Africa in Khartoum.
They are worried that they will be told to leave the premises late yesterday with nowhere safe to go. In a viral video posted yesterday, some Nigerians were seen lamenting their plight in the desert claiming that they had been left to their devices after the drivers refused to continue the journey because they had not been fully paid for their services. “Before we started this journey, we fought and now that we have the privilege of moving, the drivers dropped us in the middle of this desert.
We have been stuck here for five hours. “We do not have money or water. We are in an unknown environment and it is very dangerous,” lamented the clearly distraught female student. “And the drivers said they’re not moving their buses because they did not give them money. Look at this place; we don’t even have a compass to know our location. Everything has finished, we are in an unknown location and in very big danger.” The video shows some buses parked in a deserted area with a crowd of people. In another video, a student was crying saying: “We are afraid. We do not have water, hunger, and food. These soldiers, their barracks are very close to us here, (International University of Africa). There have been gunshots since last night.
No one is here for us.” However, reacting to the videos in a press briefing yesterday, Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Abike Dabiri-Erewa said the evacuation process was a tedious one and that challenges were expected. She said the government was in touch with the students, noting that relevant agencies would resolve the situation in no time, adding that the first batch of stranded Nigerians in Sudan who have been evacuated will arrive Abuja, Nigeria on Friday (today) barring any unforeseen circumstances.
“I’m seeing reports on Twitter — don’t believe everything on social media – -but I’m seeing reports that they’re stranded somewhere because the bus driver is demanding for some kind of full payment but whatever is happening will be resolved by NEMA and between the Nigerian mission in Sudan and Ethiopia,” the NiDCOM chair said. She said a total of 13 out of the 40 buses hired to transport Nigerians from the troubled Sudan had already left since Wednesday and moved by road to the border town of Aswan in Egypt where both the Nigeria Embassy staff in Egypt and top officials of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) will receive the evacuees.
She said 10 of those buses evacuated Nigerians from universities in Khartoum while the remaining three buses were dispatched to El- Razi University to convey them to the border town in Egypt. On allegations of segregation and discrimination in the evacuation process, she explained that children and women were given priority as they were profiled for administrative purposes. The NIDCOM boss said a Boeing 777 from Air Peace was expected to depart Lagos yesterday evening and will transport the first batch home on Friday. She assured all Nigerians that all those who registered to be evacuated home will all be facilitated irrespective of status, gender and state.
Dabiri-Erewa clarified that besides the huge population of Nigerian students in Sudan, there were millions of other Nigerians in the country doing their legitimate business and residing there peacefully. She allayed the fears of being attacked by the warlords, saying the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr Geoffrey Onyeama already secured the understanding of the two warlords before the transportation of Nigerians by road. On Wednesday Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, had told the nation that the Federal Government had spent $1.2 million in hiring 40 buses for the evacuation of stranded Nigerian students from the troubled country. And in a related development, Sudan’s military has been carrying out air strikes against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the capital Khartoum, despite a ceasefire being in force, the AFP news agency is reporting.
Warplanes have been seen over the city’s northern suburbs, while fighters on the ground have been exchanging artillery and heavy machine-gun fire, it quotes witnesses as saying. Meanwhile, Sudan News has tweeted that three civilians were injured when a projectile hit a residential block in Khartoum. It did not say who was behind the attack.
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