525 Nigerians evacuated from US, Cyprus

Five hundred and twenty-five Nigerians stranded by the coronavirus lockdown in the United States of America and Cyprus have been repatriated home by the federal government.

Three hundred and fifteen of them were airlifted to Abuja by the Ethiopian Airline while the remaining 210 came aboard a Turkish Airline.

Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, confirmed the arrival of the evacuees on her Twitter handle on Saturday.

Earlier, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, had said on Twitter that the evacuees from the US departed Newark Airport, New Jersey at 23:27hrs on Friday.

Those evacuated by the Turkish Airlines included students from Cyprus, Nigerian professionals in Turkey and few Nigerian professional footballers.

Two more evacuation flights are expected from the US to Abuja and Lagos, on the 28th and 31st of this month.

The federal government had on July 4 evacuated 335 stranded citizens from the US as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: punchng.com