Abike Dabiri-Erewa, chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), has said Nigeria will start evacuating its citizens stranded in parts of the Middle East once the region’s airspace reopens.
She spoke on Tuesday while responding to complaints from a Nigerian who said he had been stuck in Qatar with his family for several days.
Tensions in the Middle East have risen sharply after Iran carried out strikes in response to what it described as US missile activity from a military base in Qatar. Iran has also exchanged attacks with Israel and the United States since the conflict erupted on February 28.
Before the escalation, several countries advised their citizens to leave high-risk locations in the region. Nigeria also issued a travel advisory on the first day of the crisis and said it was monitoring the “evolving and volatile situation”.
Some countries have already begun evacuating their nationals. France organised repatriation flights that brought citizens home from Oman and Egypt, with the first aircraft arriving in Paris on March 4. Italy also evacuated a group of its students from Dubai.
Flight tracking data indicated that Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar shut their airspace after the war began. Some flights later resumed in limited form. By March 2, Etihad had begun temporary departures from Abu Dhabi. On Saturday, Qatar Airways also resumed some services to cities such as London, Madrid, Paris, Rome and Frankfurt.
Despite those developments, several Nigerians say they remain stranded across the region.
One Nigerian user on X described the situation in a message posted on Monday.
“Never been this helpless before in my life 9days stuck in Qatar with my family and other Nigerians who were on transit, countries have picked up their citizens from here it’s mostly Nigerians that are left! We have called Embassy and Consulate yet no positive response,” the user wrote.
“Every Nigerian here just feels helpless, the passport can’t even get us a Saudi visa! to at least leave from here, once you click Nigerian it stops even with a Uk visa. This situation is a highly Diplomatic situation, but we seem to not have a strong diplomatic relation.
“For the repatriation flight, for how long are we going to have to wait for? We need help here; there are really old people here with us and children.”
Dabiri-Erewa replied that evacuation would begin once it is safe for flights to operate.
“Luckily a flight came in from the UAE to Lagos two days ago just before another strike and closure of the airspace.
“Once the airspace opens, the multi-agency fgn team on crises and evacuation are on standby.
“Our prayers with you and all our people in affected countries.”
The exact number of Nigerians stranded in Iran or other countries affected by the conflict has not been confirmed.
Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia are major travel and transit hubs for Nigerians.
Data from Flight Radar on Sunday showed increased movement from UAE-based airlines such as Air Arabia, Emirates and Flydubai after some flight corridors reopened.
As of Tuesday, Qatar still maintained an alert that its airspace remained closed. However, the notice indicated that about 16 Qatar Airways flights were expected to depart Doha, including one bound for Nairobi, Kenya.
The airline also announced plans to operate additional flights from Doha on Wednesday to several cities including Cairo, London, Jeddah, Manila, Kochi, Muscat, Istanbul, Mumbai, Delhi, Nairobi, Islamabad, Madrid, Frankfurt, Colombo and Milan.
