The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has received another batch of 174 stranded Nigerians from Libya.
The returnees arrived at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos at 10 a.m. on Friday.
They were brought back in an Al Buraq Airlines Boeing 737-8000 aircraft with registration number 5A-DMG by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union (EU) under the Assisted Voluntary Return Programme.
The returnees were received by officials of NEMA and other government agencies including the Nigeria Immigration Service, the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, the Nigeria Police Force and the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons.
The Acting Zonal Coordinator of NEMA, South West Zonal Office, Segun Afolayan, said after profiling the returnees that they included 61 female adults, four female children and eight female infants.
Afolayan said there were also 91 male adults, six male children and four male infants, along with an unaccompanied male child, among the returnees.
He said the returnees included 10 families, three minor medical cases and three pregnant women.
Afolayan advised Nigerians to be wary of traffickers who lure them into perilous journeys with false messages of getting rich quick outside the country.
One of the returnees, 30-year-old Mr Chukwudi Onyemechie, from Anambra State, told newsmen that he was a successful auto tyres dealer at Ladipo Market, Lagos before he was fooled by the promise of a better life in Europe.
Onyemechie said a man convinced him to travel to France via the Libya route and he eventually sold off his wares and proceeded to Benin Republic where he began the unfortunate journey.
Onyemechie advised Nigerian youths who were thinking of going to Europe through Libya to jettison such plan, stressing that it was better for them to make the journey in a regular manner and with adequate information.
