BY Charles Adingupu
The travails of Nigerians caught in the crossfire of Sudan’s raging war is far from over as Egyptian authorities send over 500 students back to Sudan following the failure of two of them to provide either a passport or Emergency Travel Certificate.
A Nigerian official who does not want to be named said on Friday morning, that students without passports or ETC have been instructed to stay back.
The official added that two students without any of these documents were impatient and joined their colleagues, but angry Egyptian officials ordered that all the students should be taken back to Sudan to get the needed permits.
“Our children have spoiled the efforts that the Federal Government is putting in place to airlift them. All the students that have passports were allowed to move to the Egypt airport and those that do not have were asked to wait behind and an ETC will be issued to them as a formal document for them to travel. Out of impatience, two students without passports or ETC sneaked in.
“Now, the two students were discovered at the Aswan airport and the Egyptian authorities are angry. Now, all the stranded Nigerians have to go back to Sudan. They conveyed over 500 Nigerians and everyone will go back to Sudan. They will have to get an exit permit and then get another permit back to Egypt. This will cause a delay of almost 10 hours,” he said.
“Also, in the midst of the confusion, a child sneaked into Egypt. We cannot find him. Legal actions would be taken against the two students.”
The official warned students at Port Sudan to behave in a coordinated manner to avoid being returned back to Khartoum.
The federal government effort in evacuating stranded Nigerians in war torn Sudan, appears to be yielding appreciable dividends as over 350 of them have been airlifted to Nigeria.
