Aliko Dangote Foundation has committed to evacuating and resettling stranded Nigerians in Sudan.
The Board of Trustees of the Foundation made this resolution known, as they seek to collaborate with the Federal Government and Air Peace in ensuring the seamless transportation of stranded Nigerians back to Nigeria.
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Aliko Dangote Foundation (ADF), Zouera Youssoufou, expressed the Foundation’s readiness to provide logistics and succour to the evacuees to make them settle more comfortably when they return to Nigeria.
She noted that the Foundation 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.
“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,” she said.
Aliko Dangote Foundation has a track record of supporting the Nigerian government in times of crisis.
In 2015, the Foundation provided logistics support for the Nigerian volunteer health workers who supported the Ebola containment efforts in Liberia and Sierra Leone upon their return to Nigeria.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, the Foundation 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, the Foundation has also supported several thousand internally displaced persons (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, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development issued a joint press release stating that the first batch of 13 buses conveying 637 evacuees had arrived at the identified safe borders at Aswan, Egypt.
The evacuees are undergoing necessary documentation and clearance before admission into the Egyptian territory for their eventual evacuation to Nigeria.
The Sudanese crisis has led to intense clashes between the country’s military and the main paramilitary force, leading to the loss of hundreds of lives.
Thousands of people fleeing the bloody civil war are reported stranded on the Sudan-Egypt border because of visa requirements demanded by Egypt.
