No fewer than 139 Nigerian immigrants who try to illegally cross to Europe through the Mediterranean Sea from have been deported have been deported.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), which disclosed this, said the deported Nigerians arrived Lagos airport on Tuesday.
Spokesman of NEMA, Ibrahim Farinloye, confirmed the deportation to newsmen on Wednesday.
Farinloye said that the aircraft that conveyed the deportees arrived the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, at 11:20 p.m. on Tuesday aboard a chartered Airbus A320 Afriqiyah aircraft with registration number 5A-ONA.
The deportees, he said, were received by officers of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), the Police, and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
“Another batch of Nigeria voluntary returnees who were stranded in Libya and were assisted by International Organisation for Migration to returned to Nigeria on Tuesday.
“After the profiling, we have 105 females comprising 101 female adults, three female children and one female infant.
“We received a total of 34 males made up of 32 male adults, one male child and one male infant.
“There are also three medical cases among the voluntary deportees from Libya,” Yakubu was quoted as saying.
Farinloye noted that a total of 2,517 Returnees have been deported so far from Libya by IOM since February 29.