Another batch of 161 Nigerians has returned from Mitiga in Libya, according to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
The NEMA Acting Coordinator, Lagos Territorial Office, Ibrahim Farinloye, received the returnees who landed the country at 9:15pm on Thursday.
According to Farinloye, the returnees came back courtesy of the European Union and the International Organization of Migration (IOM) aboard AL Buraq air with flight number UZ189 and registration number 5A-DMA.
The returnees comprised of 48 female adults, four female children, five female infants, 102 male adults, one male child, and one infant male.
Other agencies that were present to welcome them from the North African nation include the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), Police, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), and National Commission for Refugees and Migration.
The recent batch of returnees means 14,045 Nigerians are back to the country with 8,200 of them males and 5,845 females.
READ ALSO: Illegal Migration: 15,731 Nigerians Returned From 16 Countries In Two Years – NEMA
One of the returnees, Mercy Olatinde (not real names), from Akure, Ondo State, while narrating her ordeal, revealed that she left the country while she was 19.
According to her, she spent one year and three months before she decided to return to Nigeria, explaining that she left the country due to pressure on her.
Olatinde said her mum had mental health issues and the father of her child left just as she had to take care of her siblings, also.
“My mum relations and friends abandoned us. I was a tailoring apprentice after my hubby left us,” she said. “My mum was thrown out of the house we were living because we could not afford to pay the rent. Feeding became serious problems.”
Speaking further she said, “My siblings could not continue schooling, they dropped out of school. No one was there for us. I had no alternative to seeking more opportunities outside when I was told that I could secure good jobs.
“But it was unfortunate that the so-called good job was meant to destroy our future. Most of our ladies are located in Connection job while handful in Arabu works.”
She claimed “Arab work is like housemaid who goes with unpleasant experience from torture to overworking into very late hours and waking up very early. Connection job is something that ladies exposed to that will not like to talk about.
“The worst of it all is that all efforts to raise money become fruitless as militants or police can bust into our houses, rob us of our belongings and go away with everything we had worked for over there.”
Furthermore, she lamented that “Trying to send something back through a Nigeria, you have to pay the amount you wish to send, a Nigerian will collect cash and ask his relative in Nigeria to send half of the amount to the person that the money is meant for.
“I will never encourage anyone to embark on this type of perilous journey as it is just a waste of one’s life for the periods spent on this type of journey though it is an experience a very bad one.
“I need assistance to start off my life, my mum is better off health-wise and she is hawking pure water now.
“I learn IOM and other organizations are helping people like us, I want to complete my fashion designing by apprenticeship but need to source for means of feeding while I am under apprenticeship.”
Below are more photos from the airport where the returnees were received by NEMA officials.
