COVID-19: Nigerian govt approves last evacuation flight from US

The Federal Government has approved the ninth and last evacuation flight for Nigerians stranded in the United States due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.

The Consul General of Nigeria in New York, Mr Benaoyagha Okoyen, announced this in a statement dated August 10, 2020, on behalf of the country’s missions in the U.S.

“The flight is scheduled to convey the evacuees from New Jersey on August 20 to both Abuja and Lagos,” the statement read in part.

This would come after the seventh and eight evacuation flights scheduled for August 15 and August 19, respectively, from Houston, Texas, to Lagos, NAN reports.

The government had so far evacuated 1,739 stranded Nigerian citizens in six special flights from the U.S. which is witnessing a second wave of coronavirus infections.

Meanwhile, the United States’s COVID-19 tallies as at Monday stood at 5,044,864 infections with 162,938 deaths, according to data compiled by the John Hopkins University of Medicine.