The Federal Government has evacuated another batch of 186 Nigerians stranded in South Africa.
The flight conveying the evacuees-Air Peace according to the media aide to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sarah Sanda departs OR Tambo International Airport at about 4.30pm local time on Thursday.
Over 10, 000 Nigerians stranded in various countries across the world have so far been evacuated following the global lockdown in March, 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The last Evacuation flight from South Africa Air Peace is taking off at 4.30 pm local time from OR Tambo International Airport, Johannesburg to Lagos with 186 passengers. About 35 are for Abuja,” Sanda stated.
Meanwhile, Ethiopian Airline today (Thursday) said its last evacuation flight out of Nigeria will depart the country tomorrow, Friday.
This clarification becomes necessary following “a misleading ” report by a major newspaper that the airline is operating a commercial flight out of the country on Friday, thereby defying the federal government’s announcement that commercial international flights will resume on August 29th.
Ethiopian Airline clarification is contained in a statement signed by Tilahun Tadesse.
It reads: “As the Government of Nigeria has fixed August 25th as the Last Day for Evacuation flights from Nigeria Africa’s largest Airline Ethiopian Airlines will be doing its last evacuation flight out of Nigeria on Friday the 21st of August.
“The Nigerian Government and the American Governments have relied on the services of the Airline to evacuate their citizens from Lagos, Houston, Abuja and Newark.
“The Airline is planning to resume regular operations when Nigeria officially opens its airports for international flights,” it added.