ABUJA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A total of 1,317 Nigerians voluntarily returned home from Libya in the past 10 days, after having been stranded in the north African country en route to Europe, the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said on Friday.
The returnees arrived in batches between Dec. 5 and Dec. 15 with the assistance of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the Nigerian government and the European Union.
In a statement, head of NEMA Mustapha Maihajja said some 249 returnees, the latest batch, arrived in Lagos late Thursday.
In November alone, 1, 295 Nigerians voluntarily returned home from the north African country.
The Nigerian official said the government would continue to work with international partners to ensure the return of more Nigerians from Libya where they had been facing severe hardships and rights violations.
Last week, the Nigerian government said it had identified 2,778 of its citizens languishing in detention camps in Libya.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said the Nigerian migrants were kept in some accessible detention camps in Libya. They were identified by officials of the Nigerian Embassy in Libya who visited the detention camps.
As the identification exercise continues, those identified were issued emergency travel certificates, the foreign ministry said.
The Nigerian government vowed to make the repatriation of its citizens a continuous exercise, as the embassy will continue to engage the government in Libya and other stakeholders in addressing the plight of Nigerian migrants in that country.
Meanwhile, the IOM has said many Nigeria returnees from Libya had psychiatric issues.
Noting up to 4,500 irregular Nigerian migrants had returned from Libya between January and November, head of the global organization in Nigeria, Enira Krdzalic, said the number of deaths and those suffering exploitation and abuse along the Central Mediterranean migration route is at an alarming rate.
"Crossing the Mediterranean is by far the deadliest route, with one death recorded for 35 arrivals. European statistics show that the amount of migrants from West Africa in migration flows to Europe have continued to increase, despite the perilous conditions of making the journey irregularly," she added.
