Air Peace Limited said it has carried out a rescue mission to repatriate 78 Nigerian women trafficked to Côte d’Ivoire under the false pretence of employment.
The airline said it deployed a Boeing 737 aircraft (registration 5N-BQV), which departed Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos, on Saturday and landed at Félix-Houphouët-Boigny International Airport, Abidjan, before returning with the victims on the same day entirely free of charge.
Receiving the returnees, Air Peace’s Chairman, Allen Onyema, assured them that the Federal Government would take care of them.
According to him, President Bola Tinubu is happy with their safe arrival in Nigeria.
He also erased fears of them being arrested, saying the Federal Government officials were on the ground to receive them.
He charged them to believe in themselves, adding that the government reached out to repatriate them back home.
“We are very sorry that some people deceived you; you don’t deserve to be deceived. You are human beings like any other person, and you can be all you want to be,” Onyema was heard telling them in a video posted on the airline’s Facebook page.
“Don’t look down on yourself. We don’t need to do the wrong thing to become whatever we want to become. We are bearing you back to rehabilitate you and reintegrate you into the Nigerian society.
“We can have a President among any of you. Don’t look down on yourself, you can be a governor. We don’t need to sell our bodies to do anything,” he said.
He emphasised the importance of restoring the dignity of the rescued women.
“These women have endured unimaginable hardship. They deserve not just to be brought home, but to be treated with care and respect,” he said.
Onyema announced that the women would receive comprehensive medical care, free of charge, at Duchess Hospital.
This latest humanitarian flight adds to Onyema’s long record of magnanimous interventions. In 2019, he made global headlines after Air Peace evacuated 503 Nigerians caught in the xenophobic violence in South Africa.
During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, his aircraft facilitated the repatriation of stranded Nigerians across multiple continents.
In 2022, Air Peace conducted emergency evacuations during the Ukraine-Russia crisis, and in May 2023, it airlifted 277 Nigerians fleeing the turmoil in Sudan.
