Ukraine-Russia Crisis: Evacuation Begins Wednesday As Air Peace, Max Air To Airlift 2,000 Nigerians

The Federal Government is collaborating with Air Peace and Max Air to begin the evacuation of about 2,000 Nigerians who escaped from Ukraine to neighbouring countries.

The evacuation is scheduled for Wednesday, according to Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama.

Onyeama in an interview on Channels TV’s ‘Politics Today’ programme, revealed that President Muhammadu Buhari has also approved funds for the evacuation process.

He gave a breakdown of the number of Nigerians in Ukraine as 8,000 with 5,000 of them being students.

Onyeama had told the House of Representatives that “We made Romania the hub and over a thousand Nigerians have crossed there. Poland has about 250, Budapest in Hungary has a similar number, Slovakia is rising rapidly. It is also around 200. There are some Nigerians in a place called Sumy close to the Russian border.

“I have been in touch with the Ambassador. There are about 150 of them who are looking to cross into Russia and we have asked the Ambassador in Russia to try and get a permit for them to transit to Russia and hopefully by Wednesday we will start deploying planes to start bringing the Nigerians.”

The media aide to the Presidency, Tolu Ogunlesi also confirmed the development.

He said, “There are about 5,600 Nigerian students in Ukraine, and a total of around 8,000 Nigerians in all.

“There are currently 1,000 Nigerians who have now crossed into Romania from Ukraine. They will be airlifted in the coming days. (People also crossed successfully into Poland & Hungary, and around 150 in Sumy, Ukraine, for whom Russia is the closest border).

“Nigerian government will arrange chartered flights from Air Peace and Max Air from countries around Ukraine in the coming days.”