The Nigerian Government will begin evacuation of about 700 citizens trapped in the United States from Sunday, 10 May 2020, an official of the Nigerian Embassy said.
Benaoyagha Okoyen, the consul-general of Nigeria in New York, said in a notice that the exercise will be conducted in batches and will follow prescribed procedures to select those who will board first.
Government, he said, will evacuate 270 persons in the first batch through Ethiopian Airlines which will leave Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey by 9.15 p.m. on a direct flight to the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja.
Those to be evacuated are Nigerians willing to pay a fixed economy one-way ticket price to escape from the United States which has become the epicenter of Covid-19 devastation in the world.
OKoyen said that the one-way tickets have been assessed at between $1,300 and $1,700 dollars per adult passenger.
Because over 700 citizens registered with the missions to be evacuated, he said the criteria to select the first batch of 270 will be on a first-come-first-served basis but with other priority considerations such as immigration status.
“This includes the need to consider those stranded with proof of short stay visas, the elderly, families with children and returning students,” he said.
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