The Nigerian government has denounced Poland for holding Nigerians and other African students fleeing war-torn Ukraine in detention centres because of their dark colour.
Abike Dabiri-Erewa, the Chairman of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), expressed disgust with the occurrence, calling it “wrong and distressing.”
On Thursday, Mrs Dabiri-Erewa spoke at the start of a two-day Psychosocial Trauma Clinic for Ukrainian returnees.
The National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, NiDCOM, and Project Victory Call, PVC, Initiative, Naija, collaborated to organise the clinic.
Mrs Dabiri-Erewa stated that some Nigerian students who had escaped war-torn Ukraine to Poland and Hungary were now being held in Poland.
The federal government, she claimed, was not happy about this development.
Imagine we are not able to get them back home, look at what is happening in Poland? she said, praising Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari for making it feasible for the stranded students to come home.
“Some Africans and Nigerians decided not to return home, now Polish authority is now going around and capturing blacks and putting them in detention camps.
“So, those Nigerians who refused to return are at a risk, some are in detention centres in Poland and they are in a traumatic condition.
“However, inasmuch as Nigeria has given them the opportunity to come back home and they refused, it does not mean the Polish authority will grab them and put them in detention centres.
“The Federal Government is now calling on the Poland authority to release the blacks in their custody.
It is not right for them to detain the blacks because they decided to take cover in their country (Poland).
“They are not putting whites in those detention centres, so send them back to their countries instead of capturing them in detention centres which is the height of racism in a war situation,” she said.
Concerned Nigerians PVC Naija spoke with NiDCOM Chairman on the voluntary painful psychosocial rehabilitation exercise for returned students.
For easy access, this would then extend to the six geopolitical zones. Imaan Suleiman, the Federal Commissioner of the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Displaced Persons, also spoke about the commission’s plans to open offices across the country.
She went on to say that psychological support needed tools and training to reach individuals in need.
She went on to say that it was a worthwhile cause because mental health was important and that various people’s resilient nature affected how they reacted to adversity.
