Sudan: Dangote steps in, partners FG, Air Peace on re-settling evacuated Nigerians

The Board of Trustees of the Aliko Dangote Foundation has resolved to be fully involved in the evacuation and resettling of thousands of Nigerians that are stranded in Sudan.

Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF), Zouera Youssoufou has been in contact with the Management of Air Peace and the Federal Government to indicate the Foundation’s readiness to support the stranded Nigerians.

She said: “The Foundation will collaborate with the Federal Government and Air Peace in ensuring seamless transportation of the stranded Nigerians and more importantly provide logistics and succour to the evacuees, to make them settle more comfortably when they return to Nigeria.”

The Foundation MD further stated that ADF’s understands the challenges of the Federal Government and Air Peace involved in this mission and has contacted relevant Federal Government agencies, involved in humanitarian disaster relief intervention, “…indicating our interest in collaborating with them to ensure that all Nigerians stranded in Sudan are brought back home safely.”

It would be recalled that Aliko Dangote Foundation supported the Nigerian government with logistics support for the Nigerian volunteer health workers who supported the Ebola containment efforts in Liberia and Sierra Leone upon their return to the country in 2015. Also, during the recent Covid pandemic, ADF supported the return of Nigerians from India and Dubai during the outbreak of the pandemic with specially chartered flights and Covid testing and quarantining when they arrived back in Nigeria. Since 2011, ADF has supported several thousand IDPs in Yobe, Borno, Adamawa, and Abuja with a total spending of over 25 billion naira in the provision of food, shelter, and health services.

Meanwhile, a Joint press release from the Ministry of foreign affairs and the federal ministry of humanitarian affairs, disaster management, and social development revealed that the first batch of 13 buses conveying six hundred and thirty-seven (637) evacuees had arrived at the identified safe borders at Aswan, Egypt, and are undergoing necessary documentation and clearance before admission into the Egyptian territory for their eventual evacuation to Nigeria.

Sudan has been experiencing intense clashes between the country’s military and the main paramilitary force. Hundreds of people have been killed, while thousands that are fleeing the bloody civil war are reported stranded on the Sudan-Egypt border because of visa requirements demanded by Egypt.