The tyre in one of the buses conveying stranded Nigerians from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to Port Sudan where they will move into Saudi Arabia was gutted by fire in the early hours of Monday, May 1.
Twenty-six buses conveying the stranded Nigerians left Al Razi around 12am on Monday for Port Sudan.
“One of the buses conveying some 50 Nigerian students from Sudan with a tag number (Katsina 1) heading to Port Sudan as part of the second batch of FGN evacuation got damaged due to excessive heat from one of the vehicle’s tyres. Dr Hashim Idris Na’Allah, the chairman of the Nigerian Elders’ Forum in Sudan, was one of the passengers in the said bus, which contained a total of 50 students (49 males, 1 female). The incident happened around 2:30am Sudan time. The driver stopped the bus near an RSF checkpoint, just before the tire exploded causing a fire to start.
All the passengers escaped unhurt. Forty out of the 50 passengers were later distributed to the other buses evacuating the students, while the remaining passengers spent the night where the incident happened alongside the driver at the RSF checkpoint.
The students said the RSF really did their possible best to help the passengers and offered them with cups of tea in the morning before they left,” Sani Aliyu who is in Sudantold DailyTrust
The damaged part was fixed and the occupants of the bus have since continued their journey to Port Sudan.