The returnees reportedly arrived by road and were immediately taken through official processing and reintegration procedures coordinated by federal and state authorities.
At least 1100 Nigerian migrants stranded in Agadez, the Republic, have returned to Nigeria through Kano State, with the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) confirming their arrival on Friday.
The returnees reportedly arrived by road and were immediately taken through official processing and reintegration procedures coordinated by federal and state authorities. The Commandant of the Immigration Training School, Kano, Anthony Akuneme, disclosed this in a statement accompanied by videos of the migrants’ arrival.
According to him, the migrants are currently undergoing documentation through the Migration Information and Data Analysis System at the Migrants Arrival, Knowledge and Information Area before being moved to the International Transit and Stay of Knowledge centre for profiling, counselling, and reintegration support.
“Personnel of KNSC, MAKIA, and ITSK are fully on ground with other relevant federal and state agencies to ensure hitch-free and safe processing,” Akuneme stated in the brief update titled, “1,100 Nigerian returnees from Agadez, Niger Republic, just landed in Kano by road.”
The Kano Nationality Sortation Centre, MAKIA, and ITSK serve as the official reception corridor for returning migrants, where they are profiled and linked with reintegration programmes.
The framework is being jointly managed by the Nigeria Immigration Service, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the International Organisation for Migration, and state government agencies.
Agadez, located in northern Niger, has for years remained a major transit hub for African migrants attempting to travel through Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe.
Between 2015 and 2018, the city emerged as one of the busiest migration routes in the world, with hundreds of thousands of migrants reportedly passing through the corridor annually.
Although Niger later introduced anti-smuggling laws under pressure from Western governments, irregular migration through the route reportedly continued despite crackdowns.
The situation in the Sahel region worsened following the July 2023 military coup in Niger, which led to the removal of President Mohamed Bazoum and the subsequent withdrawal of French and American military forces from the country.
Migration agencies have since reported renewed movement along the Agadez corridor amid growing instability in the region.
According to data released in April 2026 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, at least 269,010 Nigerians displaced by insurgency in the Northeast are currently taking refuge in the Diffa region of the Niger Republic.
The International Organisation for Migration also said thousands of stranded Nigerians have been assisted to return home from Niger since 2017, with many of them being young men who became trapped after failed attempts to reach Europe.