FULL VIDEO: Nigerian Returnees Recount Their Experience Over Russia-Ukraine Crisis

it is 3 15 a.m i know the sign behind me says departures this is where the nigerian returnees from ukraine will be coming in from and they say at about 3 30 a.m so that's about in 15 minutes time this particular flight is an asman flight carrying about 180 nigerians who have escaped from ukraine into romania so these particular returnees are coming in from romania the team to receive this return is already here we have neymar we have nafta we've got the police we've got all the agencies all gathered here waiting for these returnees to get in here and we'll be looking forward to hearing what their experiences have been following the crisis in ukraine and what their hopes are for the future and of course what plans the government has to rehabilitate them as they come back to nigeria they will be guided through this entry into this hall the port health services will begin their operations by monitoring the temperature as they pass through this point and they will be guided to sit down profiling will take place while they are seated we expect pot health services [Music] and other agencies that are forms to distribute to them to do that while they are seated it will be a kind of simultaneous operation for us while they are seated and filling forms the port health services and the ncdc will call them out and then they'll collect samples from them we have eight stations four on the other side and four here they will collect samples from them uh for their pcr tests and then they will join back as they complete their registration for those that have completed their registrations and also done the sample collection they will be ushered to the immigration section for further documentation we also uh i don't know if the refugee commission is here with the takeaway parks we are thinking that and that is open to suggestion now thinking that the takeaway pass can be administered here before the exit the hall from neymar a hundred dollar note will also be given here so that as they exit and they are done with immigration they can exit the hall some of the parents are already waiting outside the relatives are waiting outside to receive them and we have pre-positioned some ambulances in case of medical emergency emergencies which we do not envisage but those provisions have been made so in the next 30 minutes according to the information we gathered the estimated time of arrival here is 0 7 1 0 hours that's 7 10 that's less than 30 minutes from now so please if you have other things you need to put in place within that time this is time to do that for the members of the press i think where you are stationed right now is good enough but as soon as that's for the purpose of you sorry that's for the for for you to be able to view them as they come in as to whether you want to capture them as they descend or disembark the aircraft would think about that now but while they are here i mean coming in you can as well capture them here when they are in we expect that you move away from that location so that the post services and other profilers can do their job uninterrupted if there are other questions to ask you'll be given opportunities to do that we also expect that the minister humanitarian affairs disaster management and social development will be on ground to address the returnees we have not decided whether to be done it's very convenient here on the other hand she may want to brief them at the foot of the aircraft or while they are still on board the aircraft that will be communicated to us are there clarifications please don't make it long there is no media chat yes oh what is [Music] a lot has already been done to create a self corridor to bring them all out but while you are here this morning we want to just let you know of a few things that have been put in place for you as you come down in two five we will walk straight uh to meet with sports authority and uh there the health sports authority will give you forms to feel we will only take your samples uh for the covet test as they are all aware it was worth for us before you got on the plane the moment that is done you will be directed to immigration and as soon as you are done with immigration we will direct you to where you will collect a token of transportation for you to be able to head back home for those of you whose parents and what are here to pick you up we have made adequate arrangements for you to meet with them as soon as these processes are concluded we will try our very best not to waste your time we will keep it as short as possible so that you can quickly join your loved ones for those of you that have nowhere to go yet please do not hesitate to inform us so that we can take up from there once again on behalf of his excellency president muhammadu buhari the federal government and the good people of nigeria and the ministers of foreign affairs and humanitarian services together we want to sincerely welcome you all as the processes begin please let us be orderly let us be orderly you are great nigerians you are back home we do not have anything to be afraid of anymore so we'll take you all one at a time and we'll do our best not to waste your time you're all welcome [Music] uh [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] the parliament as well under the leadership of the senate president and the speaker of the house of representatives will also make some of the parliamentary diplomatic engagements with some of our members up there to see how we can support government and support these student to really get back as soon as normalcy returns yes foreign missions yes i think there is no deterrent no no no no we give them every answer no problem no problem no problem no problem no problem yes i did yes i did what i'm saying is that you see in our budgetary planning process we never had envisaged this kind of emergencies coming up of course nobody had budgeted for evacuation of students because we never knew of this kind of circumstances so all i'm saying is that the federal minister of foreign affairs through the federal government next time going forward should try to embassade some of these things as by way of emergency anticipation so that when we are budgeting we budget for the missions to be able to address this kind of circumstances whenever they come up we don't hope for them to recover but the fact is that we must make our arrangements out of experiences that's just what i mean like you have just seen now the federal minister of foreign affairs is up and doing the permanent secretary is here with us physically because the minister is being with the president outside of the country i believe all arrangements have been put in place like i said we are here to stand in for the people of the country and as oversight institutionally we have seen enough arrangements and very adequate arrangements made by the prime minister of foreign affairs to really take care of these circumstances those families that are already here will be made available to the awards and pick them up and where you have challenges or otherwise situations the government through the prime minister of foreign affairs has made adequate arrangements to really link up these students with their loved ones the government of romania have really cooperated and have assisted in the success of this thing we have a lot of citizens of romania who has also come to volunteer to help these students right from the airports to the hotels where the ministry has kept them and secondly is to also commend the ministry and the embassies because they have done wonderfully well around the clock they were with this student and they made sure that they were all accommodated in hotels and they were given everything they needed because we went to the hotels we met them at the airports they kept them very comfortable our only area of concern now is for those students that are still in ukraine and i think we will put our heads together with the ministry to see how the remaining students out there will also come out to safety so basically that's it a lot of people on social media what there were some complaints that chinese had on social media talking about racism at borders now that has been taken care of because the prime minister just told me that even the the poland border that they were complaining about over 2000 have already crossed into poland and they are safely in poland with the embassy and they will be evacuation will start immediately today some of them will about three aircrafts you said will come in today so that problem has been taken care of let us begin first of all by thanking the almighty god for their safe return thanking his excellency president muhammadu buhari the federal government and people of nigeria for making this possible and we are also grateful for all the volunteer work that we have enjoyed from all the surrounding countries around ukraine that have helped our students even during the process of this evacuation one thing we want to assure you is that government is on top of its game apart from just getting them in and this morning they are going through some processes the covet test will be done immigration clearances will be made as you're aware some of them had no passports because they were they left in a hurry and so we had to create emergency certificates for all of them so immigration will do its processes this morning and then we will have them documented and then of course government has provided a stipend that can afford a flight ticket to everywhere in nigeria for each and every one of them to be able to go back home this morning so all that has been made available and is ready as we speak so before they join their awards their parents or those that are moving or having going over to domestic wing to fly to lagos or other parts of the country arrangements have been made provision has been made for finances for them to be able to purchase tickets this morning and go on to their parents as soon as the covetous is done apart from that also our government is already talking with the government of poland of greece of romania and hungary to see if those of them that are in their fifth year medical student i mean medical year fifth and sixth year can actually go back to universities in these countries to be able to complete their studies because we don't want that break and that already seen very very positive signs from these countries and we want to say a very big thank you to these countries for accepting to take them so please when you hear that we have received over four to five thousand of them and not all of them are coming it is not because they are running away it's because some of them need to stay back to complete their studies and missions in these countries are doing everything possible in collaboration with the host ministry of foreign affairs and some universities to allow our final year medical students finish up around there because their curriculum are virtually the same so a lot has been done in that area and then for the students that are still trapped in sumi we want to encourage parents not to worry they should be calm we have had direct talks especially his excellency the honourable minister of foreign affairs has spoken with the un and the international office of migration and the safe corridor that both countries agreed to create yesterday was a fallout of these talks that several countries because so many nationals are held up in sumi nigeria alone we have about 366 students in sumi so the moment our safe corridor is created our mission in russia will receive them and we will have a plane waiting to bring them back home so everything is in place and we are trusting god that this evaluation will continue safely we are expecting three other flights later today two from poland and one from budapest so we're expecting that at the end of the day we will have brought in close to a thousand again apart from the 415 that are just coming this morning for other courses that are not as intense as medicals some of them may have to school online but where we are also able to get some collaborations on those ministries will facilitate their return to these nations to be able to do their schooling how is the exact number of students that are expecting back in the country a hundred dollars each so we're giving them a hundred dollars because we know that the minimum ticket is about fifty thousand so whatever it is you know 100 can take you home in nigeria we have i think in all in romania we have 5 635 students registered 5635 and we'll be happy to receive as many of them as are coming but like i said some of them will stay back especially those that are in their final year medicine i will encourage them to stay back with the knowledge of mission work out their papers and work out their schools for them to be able to finish up so all right we were trying to get buses i was going to leave for one of the brothers and i think on saturday morning we were finally able to get like a bus that was going to like um the series border in chennai city ukraine so we got there i think at about 4 00 p.m go to like the beginning part of like the border we also like a lot of like cars parked and our bosses had to stop so we walked for about two hours to get there so we got to the border particularly at about 6 05 p.m and we were struggling to get inside so at the border at the ukrainian side of the border it was first of all ukrainians were priority then the ukrainian women and children then it got to the point where we were trying to like all struggle in and then we're like oh ladies first our ladies are trying to get in and like a couple of um boys from morocco they came and they're almost fighting like all the ladies and we're struggling with them then after that they're like oh indian students first that because the ambassador i don't know sends a boss to come and get them and we were there from 6 pm to 6 a.m the next day under the cold but luckily at the border where we are not that particular day it wasn't snowing so we're struggling people were screaming there was like a lot of tussle to get across the line everyone saw someone climb over people's heads just to get like into the border it was like really very stressful crossing the ukrainian side of the border then at about seven um because there was this ghanaian lady who crossed the border first and she was there she was trying to plead with the soldiers on the ukrainian side so they could maybe create a special line for black african students because apparently the moroccans thought they were not africans so that they could like we could get in easily so at about seven a.m in the morning they created the land finally for us and were able to finally cross without like a lot of stress so when we got um passed through like the major but it was kind of very easy like moving and as romanian said we had like a mr dyer from the nigerian embassy in romania he was waiting those the romanian governments and people of romania they provided like food they provided water provided blankets and different stuff those emergency services to take care of everyone and after they organized a bus i believe which took us like took some of us straight from like the city where we landed to the capital in romania which is bucharest and for some of us we had to take the train i took the train and in the train the romanians were really super nice because we didn't actually get seats so some of them are giving up their seats for us to actually remain seated and there's like a lot of food that has been like given to us by the romani people in like the train so and when we got like to bucharest i think we got free accommodation in like a hotel which was really very natural we weren't expecting that's like sort of like really nice treatment but we were all really surprised and impressed with like the treatment we got but i think um where a lot of students felt a little bit laid down was when like earlier we were told to come out like because the plane was supposed to be there and then we were told that oh so the plane might not be coming which was yesterday but eventually we got like information that the plane was going to be there 6 50 pm romanian time and it finally came eventually so all in all we're really impressed that the nigerian government like especially like the nigerian embassy we had like mr darya mr bashir mr okafo mrs mercy they were really there for us like the embassy in romania they did a very good job on like the embassy in kiev where we were told find your own shelter and take care of yourself you're on your own in kiev we were like we were totally at bangkok we rode the nigerian embassy because we contacted them and we're like oh oh we need like help like what are we doing what are we going to do like students and take care of yourself find a place that is safe and that was strange to us because we're expecting that oh maybe they will organize like a bus that would take all of us to like your brother who could cross rumble that was not the case maybe if the embassy in kiev like gave like a special letter to all the borders maybe nigerians would have been able to pass easily more like easily but we're really getting like proper responses from them and they can't deny that they told us we are known because the letter like they sent out that was basically the message and we had like friends from like 2014 when like the crisis started initially 2014 telling us that that was the similar response we got but all you know we really like appreciative to the nigerian embassy in romania and to like the people of romania they did a very great job my name is marian chalum i was able to leave ukraine uh through the romanian border um peruvian border so talk to us about your experience today let's start with the embassy how did that go uh well i didn't get any information from the emerson cave maybe because i didn't get the information by myself or maybe because there was no information at the time because i was one of the first people to cross uh into the border through the romanian border so um when i when i got to the romania but as i said as one of the first people so there was a lot of indians and arabs at the border and it was very tight because it was the first batch as i said and the arabs decided that a lot not all of them but most of them said that um they would go first and the indians said that the bus was there and they decided to go first and we felt a little bit bad because our bus wasn't there at that time and uh it was sad so it was crazy because everyone was fighting within themselves and nobody wanted to be the last to go so it was very tight so everyone was physically pushing i they you know there was a lot of stampede i have joint pain back pain but i was able to cross the bother and then because uh the boss wasn't there i was picked up by ng representative when i crossed the romanian border but i stayed in romania for two to three days and the ng representative was able to get in contact with our embassy in romania and they were able to arrange a flight but a flight a bus to take me to their care in the otto penny hotel and that was how they would call the buddha and um i didn't i wouldn't say i experienced racism because um the ukrainians were not on our side the ukrainians were giving a separate section from all international studying it was it's italians nigerians arabs um indians anyone who was in ukraine was on another side and you cannot reign on the other side because we had different uh processing so and as i said i was one of the first people i wouldn't say i experienced racism blunt um blatantly but people who went to the romanian uh through the poland border i would say they probably had experiences from over here because uh we were not much at our brother we're like five thousand but over at the poland border they were ten thousand fifteen thousand so i could only imagine what they went to if i went through this so talk to us how was your decision uh i would give the overall um diverse call of seven um first basically because it was a little bit late because of seeing other um countries embassy um already doing some things middle made us feel left out because a lot of people asked us what is your embassy doing and uh we didn't we didn't know what to say but when the government steps in we i can see their efforts and they did good because it's an emergency no one prepared for this and they did good the hotel we stayed was very good i i i don't have a picture but if you could check other penny hotel it was a really good hotel the accommodation was lovely and um i'm hearing now we have a token of i don't know 200 or 400 dollars and if that is true maybe this call will be like nine traveling no i will be staying here in abuja i live in abuja so i just i just want to go home and see my family my name is mikhail godwin and i'll be going to um lagos from here talk to us a bit about the situation in ukraine you know were you scared for your life for your students how did it all start it's just like it wasn't really where i was 10 o'clock it wasn't really a bad day you're in chernobyl the new tenure 10 o'clock it wasn't really a bad day but these sirens were like ringing every day and everything every day so that didn't make us feel safe my own friends so um at the starting point we left we went to the cirrus border the border bordering ukraine and romania and from there were able to like cross spots it was terrible and it's like too stable you're scared for your life what about school what are your plans are you gonna go back to school um if the the situation the crisis dies down i hope to return back to school so talk to us a bit about your experience you know how did you get to the border well we worked we took a bus from tenupu to um to the boat about the boat that was this kind of long queue of cars and they were not moving so we um had to check to the cars then we stood at the border for like we got a three three pm and we passed by 3 a.m and we were standing up we didn't sit down from us how was the reception it was i wouldn't say it i would say it was time i felt like the soldiers were not really putting in their base and i'm probably maybe due to distress because you were so tired it was obvious that you retired how would you assess the nigerian government's response um for we in romania i'll say it was quick just kick i didn't really expect it honestly i was feeling like when you knew i was like when they say that we're going to take outside i really put my hopes up so it was really it was quicker than i thought thanks by the president to each and every one of you for 100 each it's very important for you for your transportation back to your various homes each one of you will fill a form and you collect your money before you depart this airport please let's all be patient and calm i beg you please the waiting is over you're back home safe and that's our joy we thank god for life we thank god you're with us if you need anybody to talk to to cancel you they'll like you said there's going to be food and if you need any extra assistance we have the officials in their jacket just just talk to somebody but we're here for you once again welcome well you know we're talking about 5 000 we're vibrating 5 000 nigerians the most important thing is their families need them the country needs them back and as you can see we have 411 students here the first and most important thing is to get them back home and then we'll take it up from there it's for them to be home that's what we have to okay so then another aspect is how they will get back to their various ones some are not yes there is yes there is arrangement already put in place the president has already approved for all the evacuations to be given 100 each to go back home so that is in place and each and every one of them is going to collect that now right here yes some of the students actually complained that your response to evaluating them was very late you came late and you were national emergency management agencies you know um you have to there's need for assessment as we speak right now there is no team of neymar or anybody out there now we're just doing the assessment and profiling here that's what we are trying to do right now it's not about arranging even the aircraft to do this it's not something that's easy so we have three other flights coming in today making it fall today that they are coming into the country so are we expecting that more nigerians in romania would have opportunities like this all of this is the only flight coming in from romania as long as the nigerians out there we are bringing everybody that's the directive of the president and the honourable minister of humanitarian affairs so um the refugee commission um provides a lot of psychosocial support are you also would you be providing that for our evacuees like the dj has said they're going to proceed home with their families but they need any further support we'll be there to give them that kind of assistance until they settle in because they've been through some kind of trauma okay so you said if they need i think they all would need not necessarily everybody has their level of resistance and resilience but if they need us we're there so they have to approach or there will be there'll be a system they'll put in place to ensure that everybody is fine what other services will refugee commission be providing for them protection and assistance yeah thank you thank you very much over 400 very tired returnees from romania stand behind me here getting processed and ensuring that they get their tests done their pcr tests for kofi 19 and to ensure that they get the money that they need to be able to go back to their respective destinations the education the federal government tells us is going to be insured whether it's going to be that they go back to school online or if they find some kind of arrangement with the schools that they go to but some medical students as we heard earlier are not going to be coming back to the country because they're in the final stages of their schooling there's so many questions around the crisis in ukraine and the impact it's had on so many people but for these nigerians they're just glad to be back home kayla me channel television news

Channel: Channels Television

Views: 59,888

Keywords: Channels Television, Channels TV, Africa News, Top African News, Breaking news, Nigerian Top Stories, Russia, Ukraine, Russia’s invasion, Nigerian Returnees, Russia-Ukraine Crisis, FG, NEMA, Max Air

Id: mlBv4PiPevU

Length: 30min 50sec (1850 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 04 2022