The Federal Government has disclosed that it has deployed more buses to evacuate Nigerians who are stranded in war-torn Sudan.

This was revealed in a tweet by Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri-Erewa, on Saturday.

“And finally, more buses are now heading to Egypt from Khartoum. Again, let’s keep them in our prayers as they journey back home from this ravaging war in Sudan,” Dabiri-Erewa said in the tweet.

The short statement was accompanied by a 49-second video detailing the classification of the evacuees by their destination states.

The revelation comes a few days after some of the stranded Nigerians claimed they were abandoned in the desert for about four hours without water or food when drivers of the buses reportedly protested the late payment of their allowances.

It can be recalled that the FG said it needed $1.2m to deploy 40 buses to evacuate over 2,400 Nigerians from Sudan to Cairo, Egypt where they will be airlifted to Nigeria.

Speaking after last Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said the high cost of the evacuation was to provide security cover during the eight-hour journey from Luxol to Cairo and the eleven-hour trip from Aswan to Cairo, Egypt.

However, Dabiri-Erewa did not disclose if the additional buses were part of the 40 initially engaged by the government. (Nigerian Tribune)