The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) says it has received a batch of 164 assisted voluntary returnees from Libya who were stranded in failed attempts to reach different European countries.

The Agency’s Spokesperson, Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, who confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos, said that the returnees arrived at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja at 8:50p.m. on Thursday night.

Farinloye said the returnees comprised of 61 adult females including seven pregnant women, 96 adult males, two children and five infants, adding that 17 of the returnees had medical cases.

He said that they were brought back through the assistance of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) aboard a Libyan Airline flight with registration number 5A-DMG.

The spokesman said the Nigeria Immigration Service, National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Refugees Commission, the Police and the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) officials were on ground for profiling and documentation of the returnees.

Similarly, the Director General, NEMA, Mr Mustapha Maihajja had therefore called on faith and community based organisations to join government in efforts at discouraging irregular migration and the get-rich-quick syndrome in the society.

Maihajja, represented by the Southwest Zonal Coordinator, Alhaji Yakubu Suleiman, appealed to religious and community based organisations in leading attitudinal change towards discouraging irregular migration.

“When these organisations embrace the governments’ efforts at curbing the menace of irregular emigration that has led to the death of several youths and rendered many incapacitated, the surge of irregular migrations will be minimised.

“As much as these bodies can cause positive change, which the government is aware of, some of them are culpable in misleading the youths based on revelations of some of the returnees,” he said.

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