By Chinelo Obogo
Air Peace on Sunday, May 10, 2025, successfully repatriated 78 Nigerian women who had fallen victim to human trafficking in Côte d’Ivoire.
The free evacuation flight, operated on the airline’s Boeing 737 aircraft, departed Lagos at 14:14 hours and returned from Abidjan’s Félix Houphouët-Boigny International Airport at 22:46 hours. This humanitarian intervention was led by Air Peace Chairman Allen Onyema, who had publicly pledged in April to repatriate the trafficked women at no cost and provide them with medical and psychosocial support.
“Human trafficking is a blight on our shared humanity. These women were lured with promises and ended up in misery. As an airline of the people, we cannot stand by while Nigerians suffer abroad,” Onyema said.
The repatriation was coordinated between Air Peace, the Nigerian Embassy in Abidjan, and the Nigerian Community in Côte d’Ivoire, whose efforts ensured the women were properly documented for travel.
President of the Nigerian Community in Côte d’Ivoire, Michael Onwuchelu, praised the airline’s intervention while Mr. Paul Obi from the Nigerian Embassy acknowledged that the rescue helped overcome many diplomatic and logistical hurdles
This mission adds to Air Peace’s record of humanitarian interventions, including the evacuation of Nigerians from South Africa during xenophobic violence in 2019, repatriations during the COVID-19 pandemic, emergency evacuations during the Ukraine-Russia crisis, and airlifting Nigerians from Sudan in 2023.