544 Nigerians voluntarily return from Switzerland

The Swiss Federal Office of Migration (FOM) says a total of
544 Nigerian nationals previously living in Switzerland returned
home in 2013 under its Voluntary Return and Reintegration
Programme (VRRP).
This is contained in a statement issued by the FOM at the end the
5th Meeting of the Technical Committee for the Swiss-Nigerian
migration partnership on Tuesday in Abuja.
According to the statement, Nigeria is the third main country of
origin for asylum seekers in Switzerland in 2013 with 1,764 asylum
applications.
“The number of asylum applications from Nigerian nationals fell by
35.8 per cent in 2013 compared to the previous year,’’ the statement
read.
On the number of Nigerians who voluntarily left the country, the
FOM noted that in 2012 it supervised the departure of 441
Nigerians from the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria’s
delegation to the meeting was led by Amb. Abdulaziz Dankano, the
under-secretary in charge of Economy and Consular, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs.
Dankano expressed satisfaction with the progress made so far since
the last meeting of the Nigerian-Swiss migration partnership in
June 2013 in Berne.
“We have noticed a lot of improvements; a lot of records have been
set and a lot of achievements recorded under this partnership,’’
Dankano said without mentioning specifics.
He said that the achievements had led to increase in the number of
voluntary return of Nigerians in Switzerland in “a dignified
manner.’’
He said that the returnees would have something to fall back on
upon their return to Nigeria.
He said that Nigeria was committed to reducing irregular
migration of its nationals to Switzerland through the existing
agreement with the country.

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