Parents of some Nigerian students evacuated from their school in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, have expressed concern over the state of the children, three days into the journey.
Some parents who spoke on Sunday yesterday evening said their children, who left in the first batch on Wednesday, were yet to cross into Egypt, let alone get to Cairo, the nation’s capital, where they could travel by air to Nigeria.
One of the parents who spoke on condition of anonymity said his two children travelling in the entourage of four buses had been abandoned by their drivers.
He said that based on the information he received from the children, they were left around a boundary between Sudan and Egypt.
“They were living in the open, under scorching desert conditions with no food, water or money in their possession. Among those in the entourage are little children to some Nigerians living in the country, who are perhaps taking such a long and disturbing journey for the first time,” he lamented.
In the meantime, 18 buses are said to have left with the students and other Nigerians from Sudan’s International University of Africa (IUA) in Khartoum on Saturday.
In a latest WhatsApp audio message sent in by one of the parents, a student was heard speaking in a happy mood that they were set to leave from their school in the second phase of the evacuation exercise, which resumed on the day, following its halt on Thursday.
Another set of the evacuees are expected to leave from a second venue, Al-Razi University, also in Khartoum, as has been indicated in a letter released late Friday by the Nigerian embassy in Sudan.
