By Sami Zaptia.
London, 11 October 2016:
Nigerian media reported that 154 of their nationals were voluntarily returned home from Libya yesterday. It was reported that they were in Libya attempting to cross the Mediterranean into Europe, but that they had become stranded in Libya after their attempts had failed.
The 154 illegal migrants were returned aboard a Libyan Airlines flight from Mitiga airport to Lagos. They were made up of 58 men, 96 females of whom nine were pregnant and there were three minors.
This latest batch of arrivals is the fourth group to be returned this year bringing the total of returnees to Nigeria from Libya to 550 since March.
The voluntary repatriation was conducted by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Libya in cooperation with the Nigerian embassy in Tripoli.
In August, the IOM reported that nearly 11,000 illegal Nigerian migrants had been repatriated from Libya. The Nigerian embassy had estimated that around 6,000 Nigerians were still in Libya.
The IOM had also organized the repatriation of 171 Nigeriens from southern Libya in September and 160 back to Burkina Faso in the same month.
