Nigerian civil society organizations CSOs have urged the nation’s rich residents to use their private aircraft to fly trapped Nigerians, mainly students, out of the war-torn nation of Sudan and back home.
According to the report, as of right now, only Mr. Oscar Onyema, chairman and CEO of Airpeace, has offered to use his jets to fly desperate Nigerians out of the country’s destabilized situation.
Now, however, civil society organizations are pleading with other Nigerians who own private aircraft to volunteer in order to rescue their compatriots from the war-torn country.
The federal government’s lax approach to the evacuation of Nigerians besieged in Sudan was also criticized by the CSOs.
At the same time, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said that as of Thursday, 16,000 foreigners have fled the turmoil in Sudan over the border into Egypt, with more than 14,000 of them coming from Sudan through the border crossings at Qustul and Arqeen. Many more people are still in line to enter.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSP), a paramilitary organization, and the Sudanese Armed Forces are at war throughout the country over supremacy and political control, according to the reporter.
A deadlock over the best time to incorporate the more than 30,000-strong RSP into the military forces led to fighting between the two parties on April 15, 2023.
However, poor planning and logistical difficulties have made Nigeria’s intervention difficult while other nations are evacuating their citizens.
Videos showing several Nigerians trapped in the desert without food or water were found by the reporter.
Many Nigerians are still stranded in Sudan without assistance, according to some of them who spoke on camera. They claimed that the buses sent by the Nigerian government to evacuate them could not get them there.
However, CSOs disapproved of the situation in Sudan and urged wealthy Nigerians to send their private jets to aid in the evacuation.
The CSOs include the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center (CISLAC), Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), and Transparency International (TI).
Speaking via their chairman, Awwal Musa Rafsanjani, the CSOs urged everyone to do all they can to aid in the evacuation of trapped Nigerians.
“We applaud any effort that may be made to save Nigerians. If the Nigerian government abdicated its duty, others ought to step up.
Rafsanjani stated, “We are appealing to Nigerians, particularly the wealthy Nigerians with private aircraft, to assist in the evacuation operation in Sudan.
“It is unfair that the government, which is responsible for defending the lives of its people, is now engaging in silliness. The citizens who have pledged their allegiance to the nation and the government are being betrayed by this.
“It would be beneficial if the government could assist every Nigerian affected by the conflict in Sudan. Rafsanjani continued, “We are asking wealthy Nigerians who have the resources to deploy their own aircraft to assist in this evacuation operation.
Reports state that 7,000 foreign nationals, including Nigerians, who arrived at the Egyptian border after fleeing the turmoil were turned away because the Egyptian authorities insisted on visas.
Dr. Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the chairman/CEO of the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), revealed this in a statement yesterday while urging those in charge of passages and movement of people along Sudan’s neighboring borders to create a humane environment for those who are impacted to live in.
Nigerians were anticipated to arrive in Abuja yesterday in the first wave of the evacuation plan by the federal government, the head of NIDCOM declared on Thursday. The attitude of the Egyptian authorities, however, may cause a delay in this procedure as the foreign nationals have been unable to enter Egypt since their late-Thursday arrival.
Assuring the Egyptian authorities that the “Nigerian mission in Egypt has been working tirelessly on this as the Egyptian authorities are insisting on visas by fellow Africans to transit back to their countries,” Dabiri-Erewa pleaded with them to permit the already traumatized travelers to transit to their final destinations in various African countries.
She had stated that 13 of the 40 buses hired to transport Nigerians from Sudan had already left since Wednesday and were traveling by road to the border town of Aswan in Egypt, where both the staff at the Egyptian embassy and the director general of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) would receive the evacuees. This was during a briefing on Thursday at the State House, Abuja.
She said that 10 of the buses carried Nigerian students to and from Khartoum’s institutions, while the other three were sent to El- Razi University to take students to a border village in Egypt.
Regarding claims of prejudice and segregation throughout the evacuation process, she clarified that children and women were given precedence since they were administratively categorized.
The head of NIDCOM had previously stated that a Boeing 777 from Airpeace will leave Lagos by Thursday evening and deliver the first batch back to Nigeria by yesterday.
The first group of evacuees had arrived at the border with Aswan, she tweeted on Thursday night, and they will be heading to the airport early on Friday.
All of the evacuees were held up at various border crossings, so that didn’t happen. There were rumors that some of the buses transporting the stranded Nigerians traveled to boundaries that the governments of Egypt and Nigeria had not previously agreed upon.
However, Dabiri-Erewa assured Nigerians that everyone who registered to be evacuated home would be brought back, regardless of status, gender, or state.
She emphasized that in addition to the sizable community of Nigerian students studying abroad, millions of other Nigerians also reside there peacefully and operate legal companies.
She allayed concerns that they might later be assaulted by warlords by stating that Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama, the minister of foreign affairs, had previously obtained the two warring groups’ understanding prior to the transit of Nigerians by road.
40 buses would be purchased with $1.2 million from the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in order to transport Nigerians who are trapped in Sudan immediately.
Geoffrey Onyeama, the minister of foreign affairs, stated that the money would be used to hire 40 opulent buses to take the stranded Nigerians from Khartoum, Sudan, to Cairo, Egypt, where they would then be flown to Nigeria.
The Egyptian government announced that it had already loosened entry requirements for people from Sudan and other countries who wanted to enter through the crossing points. This included women, children, and men over 50 who could enter without a prior visa but still needed to have a current passport and immunization record.
In addition to a vaccination card, men between the ages of 16 and 49 must have a valid passport and visa.
Visas are distributed by Egypt’s embassy in Khartoum, consulate in Port Sudan, and consulate office in Wadi Halfa close to the Arqeen crossing.