The Federal Government has approved the airtlift of another batch of Nigerians stranded in the United States (US) following the Covid-19 pandemic.
BusinessDay learnt that this is the ninth and last evacuation flight for Nigerians in the US as the number of Nigerians evacuated from the country has so far hit 1,739.
This was announced by the Consul General of Nigeria in New York, Benaoyagha Okoyen, in a statement dated August 10, 2020, on behalf of the country’s missions in the U.S.
According to the statement, the flight is scheduled to convey the evacuees from New Jersey on August 20 to both Abuja and Lagos.
This would come after the seventh and eight evacuation flights scheduled for August 15 and August 19 respectively from Houston, Texas, to Lagos.
The 1,739 stranded Nigerian citizens evacuated from US were flown into the country in six special flights from the U.S. which is witnessing a second wave of coronavirus infections.
The US is one of the countries most devastated by the virus. According to John Hopkins University of Medicine, the US has recorded 5,044,864 infections and 162,938 deaths out of the nearly 700,000 deaths recorded worldwide.
