COVID19: Air France evacuates 378 Europeans from Nigeria
- A chartered flight has evacuated 260 Europeans from Nigeria amid the coronavirus outbreak
- European citizens are also being evacuated from other African countries
- There is a projection that COVID-19 spread in Africa might spike in the coming days
A report by ThisDay indicates that a chartered Air France flight evacuated 260 European citizens from Nigeria and additional 118 European citizens from other West African countries through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos on Thursday, March 26.
According to the report, the British High Commission is also exploring options for sending its staff, dependents and other Britons to the UK.
The Air France flight was said to have landed in Lagos via Cotonou with 118 passengers on board at 3 p.m. local time.
Source: Twitter
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It was gathered that 260 passengers boarded the flight from Lagos and the aircraft took off to Paris about 3.44 pm local time.
The federal government had granted Air France and KLM one-week permission to evacuate European citizens from Nigeria.
The airlines are also evacuating European citizens from the West Coast because of the projection that COVID-19 spread in Africa might spike in the coming days.
The federal government had approved for Air France to operate essential flights from Thursday, March 26 to Thursday, April 2.
The General Manager, Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Mrs Victoria Shinaba, confirmed that the federal government approved the flight to land, adding that precautions were taken to limit contacts as the pilot and crew were not allowed to disembark and the nationals were escorted to the plane.
The federal government had last week announced that from Monday, all the nation’s airports would be shut to incoming international flights.
The Nigerian government had also announced the closure of all land borders for four weeks as part of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus in the country.
The weekly federal executive council of the Buhari administration has also been suspended “until further notice,” according to an announcement by the secretary to the government of the federation, Boss Mustapha.
Also, the federal government had asked public servants to work from home from Tuesday, March 24.
The directive was given by Mrs Yemi Esan, the head of service of the federation, in a memo circulated to public servants on Monday, March 23.
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