Tensions were palpable when one of the buses carrying stranded Nigerians from Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, to Port Sudan, where they were headed to Saudi Arabia, caught fire in the early hours of Monday.
The 26 buses carrying stranded Nigerians left Al Razi around midday:
Monday morning for Port Sudan.
“One of the buses carrying about 50 Nigerian students from Sudan with the card number (Katsina 1) bound for Port Sudan during the second FGN evacuation was damaged due to one of the vehicle’s tires overheating.
“Dr. Hashim Idris Na’Allah, President of the Nigerian Senior Forum in Sudan, was one of the passengers on the aforementioned bus, with a total of 50 students (49 male, 1 female).
“The incident happened around 2:30 pm Sudan time. “The driver stopped the bus near an RSF checkpoint, just before the tire exploded and started catching fire.
“All passengers got out without injury.
“Forty of the 50 passengers were then allocated to other buses to evacuate the students, while the remaining passengers spent the night when the incident happened with the driver at the RSF checkpoint.
“Students said it really did its best to help the passengers and offer them cups of tea in the morning before departure,” said Sani Aliyu, who is in Sudan.
It was discovered that they had continued their journey to Port Sudan. More than 1,000 Nigerians are being evacuated by land from Port Sudan following difficulties in getting the first group of evacuees across the Egyptian border.
The stranded Nigerians spent five days at the border when Egyptian authorities denied them access to the country where flights were waiting to transport them to Nigeria.
