By Cross Udo and Linus Aleke, Abuja
No fewer than 2,090 Nigerians have arrived at the Polish, Romanian, Hungarian, and Slovakian embassies from Ukraine waiting to be evacuated back to Nigeria following the Russian invasion.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Gabriel Aduda, who disclosed this in a statement yesterday, said, “So far, we have the following records of evacuees received by Nigerian embassies at Hungary (650 persons), Poland (350 persons), Romania (940 persons) and Slovakia (150 persons).”

He said the first batch of Nigerian evacuees from Ukraine are expected to arrive in Nigeria Thursday (today) via Air Peace and Max Air airlines.

This came just as the Federal Government yesterday approved $8.5 million for the immediate evacuation of at least 5,000 Nigerians from Ukraine.

Giving details of the evacuees, Aduda said, “The capacity and route of the airlines are as follows: Max Air to Romania 560 persons, Air Peace to Poland, 364 persons, and Air Peace to Hungary 360 persons.”

He also gave an assurance that the government was working round the clock to see that citizens are brought back home safely.

•As FG approves $8.5m to evacuate 5,000
Speaking on the approved sum of $8.5 million for the evacuation of about 5,000 Nigerians that flee the Russia/Ukrainian war to Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Slovakia, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Zubairu Dada, said the approval came after a joint memo presented by both the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development at the council meeting.

He said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo at the Council Chamber of the Presidential Villa in Abuja.

Flanked by Sadiya Umar Farouk, the Minister of Humanitarian, Dada said Air Peace and Max Air airlines that have been contracted to provide three aircraft would run as many shifts as possible to facilitate the evacuation.

He added that those to be evacuated were those that registered for evacuation.

On the amount approved, Dada said, “The ministry of humanitarian affairs wrote a memo to the president seeking funding to enable us to conduct this exercise. The memo was to the tune of $8.5 million which Mr. President has graciously approved. That provision entails arrangements to evacuate no less than 5,000 Nigerians.

“Whatever happens you can be rest assured we are going to run any number of shifts that it will involve. Don’t forget it will also involve taking care of those Nigerians that may decide not to come back. It also includes some assistance for the feeding that may have been done by the missions under whatever arrangements. Even the missions themselves are also in dire situations. So it’s a whole gambit of activities that are involved.”

Asked if the amount will be released immediately for the exercise, the Minister said: “That is why the evacuation flights will begin today (Wednesday).”

On students trapped in Ukrainian cities now in the hands of Russians, Dada said: “We want to believe the Russian armed forces will obey the rules of engagement. They know the rules about civilians that are caught up in situations such as this. We want to assume they will respect international laws and ensure that no harm comes to them.

“Don’t forget that even our missions in Ukraine have had to be evacuated. So if for any reason any Nigerian is left behind, we are very prayerful, we are very hopeful that no harm shall come to them once of course they are in some shelters or whatever place they are hiding.

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“Don’t forget we had also summoned both the Russian and Ukrainian ambassadors to our ministry, and we did emphasise the need for their troops to ensure that they do not do anything that will harm the lives of innocent citizens.

“We have seen video clips making the rounds about the alleged treatment that had been meted out to black people who were on queues and in buses and all that. All these we have brought to the attention of the ambassadors and we have expressed our displeasure at this development and demanded that they do something about this.”

*•Racial discrimination of Nigerians, foreign students continue in Ukraine border
Meanwhile, refugees from different countries including Africa, the Middle East, and India, mainly students studying in Ukrainian universities were seen at the Medyka pedestrian border fleeing the conflict in Ukraine, in eastern Poland.
Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that a furious foreign student, Jean-Jacques Kabeya, was stopped from leaving Ukraine by its border guards.

He and several other foreigners alleged racist treatment by both the border guards and ordinary Ukrainians in interviews with AFP.

Two days after fleeing the bombing around the eastern city of Kharkiv, Kabeya reached the checkpoint at Shegyni, at the border with Poland, on Sunday evening.

But the soldiers and security guards there turned him back, said the 30-year-old student studying to become a pharmacist.

“They told me ‘You’re going to stay here, you’re fleeing the war, stay here; you are going to fight with us- you’re not leaving, least of all you blacks’,” he said.

Now, after 36 hours of waiting in vain to get through, he was back at the train station in the western city of Lviv.

There he found some compatriots from the Democratic Republic of Congo, who took him under their wing.

“It’s a catastrophe!” said Kabeya, adding that he was still trying to find a way out.

Ukraine is a popular destination for foreign students, with tens of thousands heading there to study.

But other foreign students in Lviv had similar stories to tell, and the governments of Nigeria and South Africa have already called for better treatment for their citizens.

The African Union issued a statement Monday expressing concern at what appeared to be the “shockingly racist” treatment of foreign students.

Some countries did, however, report that a few dozen of their citizens had managed to leave the country.

At Shegyni border post on Tuesday morning, there were still several hundred people, muffled up against the cold, queueing patiently to make the crossing.

They were from Pakistan, India, Algeria, DR Congo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and Algeria. Some said they had spent four nights there, with temperatures dropping as low as -10° (14 degrees Fahrenheit), in a desperate bid to leave.
On the other side of the road was another queue, reserved for Ukrainians — mainly women and children as most men had stayed behind to fight.

“All of us, we’ve got our papers,” said Mesum Ahmed, a 23-year-old computer student from Pakistan. “Because we’re foreigners, they are treating us like dogs.

“We’ve been sleeping here, on this pavement,” said Ahmed, dressed in denim and sporting a beanie and a travel pillow around his neck. But the Ukrainians, couldn’t care less.

“You can see fine well what separates them from us,” a young Nigerian added, bitterly. “We’re black, that’s what it is.”

The only help on hand was from the local volunteers serving them hot drinks and sandwiches.

“We’re here, we wait, and they don’t tell us anything,” said Richard Adjen Kusi, a student from Ghana.

He left the central city of Cherkassy when Russian President Vladimir Putin “started talking about nuclear weapons three days ago.”

But everything seemed to be blocked here, he said. “It’s not moving one centimetre. I’m scared.”

A group of around 30 students from Cameroon who until recently had been in the central city of Kirovograd said it was only in the last few days that they had experienced racism in Ukraine.

Before the war, everything had been fine.

But Bryan Famini, a 22-year-old economics student, said that changed with the invasion.

“In the stations, on the trains, were systematically kept away from the seating,” he said.

“Some Ukrainians even made fun of us from their cars, seeing us walking,” said 22-year-old Ghislain Weledji.

“I’ve been disappointed by this country,” he added. “I won’t be coming back.”

But Ukraine’s border service denied there had been any difficulties.

“Nobody has been prevented from leaving Ukraine,” they told AFP. No, they had received no complaints.

On the Polish side, officials confirmed that anyone fleeing Ukraine would be welcomed, whatever their nationality.