Investigations reveal that desperate Nigerians now travel by road to Cotonou in Benin and by boat to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea to catch international flights to Europe and other destinations.
Lots of Nigerians presently are in hotels in Cotonou waiting for their flights to different destinations and airlines like Air France, Turkish Airlines, Ethiopia Airlines, Royal Air Maroc, Brussels Airlines, Tunisair, RwandAir, Air Burkina Faso still operate to these destinations.
Since the Nigerian airspace was closed to international flights on March 23, 2020 series of evacuation flights have been taking place and normally, fares to one-way flights are very expensive.
So many Nigerians are leaving the country to take advantage of relatively cheap fares in Cotonou while some people are also travelling to Malabo from Calabar by boat to also catch flight and travel overseas. Even few expatriates who live or visited Nigeria who wished to leave the country are taking the routes as well. “Although there are evacuation is still taking place in Nigeria but travelling is very expensive so only few people who can afford the high fares use them. We cannot wait for Nigeria to join other countries to reopen the airspace for international flights since local ones have commenced successfully” An anonymous source commented
