Recently, 158 Nigerian migrants were brought back to Nigeria from Libya. The group included 77 men, 45 women, 26 children, and 10 infants.

Ambassador Mohammed Mohammed, Nigeria’s Charge d’Affaires in Libya, shared this news on Wednesday. He explained that among those repatriated, 26 men were released from the Abu-Salim Detention Centre in Tripoli, where they were held during a crackdown on undocumented migrants.

So far, 1,776 stranded Nigerians have returned home. This repatriation was a joint effort by the Nigerian mission and Libyan authorities, supported by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) through their Voluntary Humanitarian Repatriation (VHR) program.

Ambassador Mohammed advised Nigerians to avoid irregular migration. With increasing raids on illegal migrants in Libya, this issue is becoming a major national security concern for the country, and authorities have pledged to tackle it with all available means.

Mohammed said,

“This marks the 12th evacuation exercise carried out by the Nigerian Mission in Libya this year.

“The current exercise follows the repatriation 142 irregular Nigerian migrants from Sabha, Libya, on July 19.

“While some of them were rescued from the Mediterranean Sea by the Libyan Coastal Guards, others were arrested on charges of prostitution, illegal entry, overstay and lack of proper documentation while others willingly submitted themselves to the IOM in Libya for repatriation.

“Nigerians living in Libya, from many indications, already have damaged reputations due to the alleged nefarious activities of some criminal elements among them.

“Some have been fingered in the commitment of crimes such as kidnapping for ransom, drug peddling, prostitution, sale of alcohol as well as cultism and human trafficking with their Libyan collaborators,among others .

“It is, therefore, as a result of the above that, arrest and deportation of Nigerians may continue in the weeks and months ahead,”