Covid-19: Nigeria to Evacuate over 2,000 Citizens from US, UK

Covid-19: Nigeria to Evacuate over 2,000 Citizens from US, UK

Nigeria has begun evacuating over 2,000 Nigerian citizens who have expressed their wish to leave the US, UK and other European countries affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs minister Godfrey Onyeama said they have contracted two airlines to fly their citizens home from these countries. 

“We are in touch with our various embassies around the world and we are already collating names. We have also selected the two airlines that will be responsible for the evacuation.”

“The numbers of those to be brought are high and the places where we can isolate them are not enough for the travelers, so we will have to do it in a staggered fashion and together with Nema and the Ministry of Health,” he said.

“We will have to go with an agreement to be bringing them according to the number of beds and so forth that are available. We are almost ready to go.” 

Those being evacuated must undergo a mandatory Covid-19 test in their host countries and also undertake a compulsory 14-day quarantine on arrival in line with the guidelines issued by the National Centre for Disease Control. In addition, they will be evacuated and quarantined at their own costs.

These conditions were issued by the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, headed by Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa.

The announcement by Nigeria comes a day after Kenya, through Foreign Affairs PS Amb. Macharia Kamau ruled out the evacuation of Kenyans stranded abroad in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, terming it impractical.

“We have 3 million Kenyans out there. If we were to evacuate just one percent, those are 30,000 people. Just imagine the logistics. Our planes will have to crisscross the globe. Just imagine bringing 30,000 people back. Do we even have the quarantine facilities?” posed Amb. Macharia.

“Those asking us to send planes should know that it is difficult. Some Kenyans are Hungary, some in China, others in Italy. That means planes will be hovering all over the world. Ndege sio matatu bwana (A plane is not a matatu).”
 

Comments

mkenya halisi (not verified)     Fri, 04/17/2020 @ 11:11pm

Diaspora warudi wapi?Hawana chochote warudi wakakufie Kenya?Kenya if u have nothing kaa huko diaspora otherwise ile shida itakupata huku hauwezani???Kama wewe ni bongo lala unakuranga kfc maccus pesa yote wewe kaa huko.

Ex diasporan (not verified)     Sat, 04/18/2020 @ 04:01am

Na bona mimi sijakufa? We live in a free world, whoever wants to travel anywhere in the world are free to do so. I have traveled to Kenya. I'm home, death stalks anywhere, everywhere. They are dying in US in large numbers. It may happen in Kenya, too. No one will live forever.

Settled Nomad (not verified)     Sat, 04/18/2020 @ 08:12am

It may not be necessary to evaccuate anyone, if the battle against the virus is successful. Scientifically, it is currently being fought on three fronts, and success in any one of them is Invaluable. Apart from the well known Chloroquine, it is suspected that BCG, the vaccine against TB, may also work with Coronavirus. All Africans are immunized against TB at Birth. But this is not done in Western Countries, or China. It may be the reason for low infection and death rates in Africa. We are soon going to know if this is true, because Australia has vaccinated its Health Workforce with BCG, and in the coming weeks, will be able to know how effective it is with Covid-19. Thirdly, and this is the most promising, because it has already been approved for use in Humans, is the drug Remdesivir. It is a drug which was developed to treat Ebola patients, in 2015, but it proved to be ineffective against it. But it has shown signs of being effective against Coronavirus. The promise arises from the fact that if it is proven to be effective, all the necessary and lengthy tests to know if it can work on humans, which take months to complete, have already been done before.

Kenya (not verified)     Sat, 04/18/2020 @ 10:40am

I saw this fool called Godfrey Onyeama giving excuses on Youtube why Chinese are mistreating black people in China.

Add new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
  • Web page addresses and email addresses turn into links automatically.
CAPTCHA
2 + 9 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.