The Civil Liberties Organisation has said that over 300 Nigerian businessmen and women with valid returning tickets were stranded in Guangzhou, China.
According to the civil rights group, the desperate nationals said they were disallowed from leaving the Asian country and subjected to degrading treatment by the Chinese authorities.
The CLO Executive Director, Ibuchukwu Ezike, in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, appealed to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) and the United Nations to save the stranded citizens from avoidable hardship and death.
It said,
“In several distress phone communications to the CLO on Monday night, the Nigerians said that they have been disallowed from returning back to Nigeria after they had completed their business activities in China.
“They said they have been subjected to various inhuman and degrading treatment, including repeated tests, being quarantined in hotels, denial of access to Nigerian foods and serial taking away of their colleagues from their hotel rooms to unknown places.”
The human rights group further stated that the victims alleged that the Nigerian Embassy in China had failed to assist them, noting that other countries had evacuated their nationals from China.
“Smaller African countries like Ghana, Benin Republic and Togo have sent aircraft to evacuate their citizens from China. The stranded Nigerians complained that the worst scenario is that while other countries of the world have not closed their borders against their returning citizens, Nigeria has shut her borders against Nigerian returnees,” the CLO alleged.
Ezike requested the government to subject the stranded businessmen and women to medical tests after evacuation.
The Chairman, Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, directed those interested in returning home to register with the Nigerian Mission in China, adding that they must be ready to spend 14 days in quarantine on arrival in the country.
