After trying without success to travel to Europe through Libya, no fewer than 241Nigerians voluntarily returned home yesterday.
They arrived the international wing of the Murtala Muhammed Airport, Lagos from Libya aboard Libyan Airlines A333 –200 with registration number SA –LAR.
174 of the returnees were males while 67 were females. Among these were three children and three infants.
Head of the Lagos Office of the International Organisation for Migration, Dr Nahashon Thuo, told journalists at the airport that the returnees were brought from Libya on their own volition.
Thuo explained that some of the returnees were trying to cross to Europe when were arrested by Libyan Immigration officers while others committed immigration offences while in the country.
He stated that they were brought back home by IOM when they signalled their interest to return.
Also speaking at the event, the Director of Relief and Rehabilitation, National Emergency Management Agency, Aliyu Sambo, said that the returnees, who arrived in tracksuits provided by IOM, would be given $50 after the agency officials must have spoken with them.
One of the returnees, who was assisted into a waiting NEMA ambulance, told journalists that he was shot in Libya by the man he worked for, adding that he felt good returning home.
On alighting from the Libya Airlines, the returnees were taken in a waiting coastal bus that conveyed them to where documentation would take place.
Majority of them looked unkempt, suggesting that they may have been kept in camps for days before they were airlifted to Nigeria.
Officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service, Port Health from the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons were among the agencies on hand to receive the returnees.
