Many Nigerian students trapped in Sumy, Ukraine have called for urgent evacuation back home amid a Russian invasion.
Sumy, in North-East Ukraine, is close to the Russian border.
The Federal government has evacuated more than 1,000 Nigerians who made it out of Ukraine to neighbouring countries such as Poland and Romania.
But the students in Sumy are yet to find a way out of war-torn Ukraine.
The students, in videos, said they have dwindling access to food, water and electricity.
They also said they wake up most mornings to the sound of explosions and spend hours in bomb shelters beneath their hostels.
“We are in Sumy and we are stuck in Sumy,” one of the students said during a protest held under snowy conditions.
“This is Day 10, people don’t have water, people don’t have light in hostels. It’s getting cold in the hostels. There is no food. We are running out of supplies. We are calling on the Nigerian government, on the foreign affairs ministry. We want to go home.”
On Monday the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama said the government was working to evacuate some Nigerians in Sumy.
“There are some Nigerians in a place called Sumy, close to the Russian border,” he said. “About 150 of them are now looking to cross into Russia. We’ve asked the ambassador in Russia to try and get a permit for them. And we are hoping that by Wednesday, we can start deploying planes to start bringing back the Nigerians.”
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