No fewer than 1,100 Nigerian migrants have arrived in Kano from Agadez in Niger Republic by road, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) said on Friday.
It said personnel from multiple federal and state agencies are on the ground to process, counsel and facilitate the returnees’ reintegration with their families.
The Commandant of the Immigration Training School, Kano, Anthony Akuneme, who shared details and videos of the arrival, said the returnees were being documented through the Migration Information and Data Analysis System at the Migrants Arrival, Knowledge and Information Area before proceeding to the International Transit and Stay of Knowledge centre for final profiling, psychosocial 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 wrote in a terse statement titled ‘1,100 Nigerian returnees from Agadez, Niger Republic, just landed in Kano by road.’
The Kano Nationality Sortation Centre, MAKIA and ITSK currently serve as the processing corridor through which returning migrants are received, profiled and connected with reintegration services.
The reintegration framework is jointly operated by the NIS, the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, the International Organisation for Migration and state government counterparts.
Friday’s arrival follows a pattern of assisted and spontaneous returns from Agadez, a city in northern Niger Republic that has, for decades, served as the primary waypoint for West African migrants attempting the overland route to Libya and onwards across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Agadez became one of the world’s most critical migration hubs, with hundreds of thousands of migrants transiting through it annually at the peak of the West Africa-to-Europe movement between 2015 and 2018.
However, Niger enacted anti-smuggling legislation under international pressure that has since dramatically reduced formal transit flows.
Despite the crackdown, irregular migration through the Agadez corridor has reportedly never fully ceased.
The coup of July 2023, which ousted President Mohamed Bazoum and led to the withdrawal of French and U.S. forces, has since destabilised the security architecture that supported migration management in the Sahel.
According to IOM data, there has been renewed movement along the corridor in subsequent months.
Nigerians make up one of the largest nationality groups among returnees from the Agadez corridor.
The United Nation’s High Commissioner for Refugees, in its April 2026 data, said at least 269,010 Nigerians who fled conflict in the Northeast are taking refuge in Niger’s Diffa region.
The IOM said its Niger operations have facilitated voluntary humanitarian returns for thousands of stranded Nigerians since 2017, with the majority being young men from northern states who had intended to reach Europe but became stranded in Niger due to lack of funds, detention or the collapse of smuggling networks.
The PUNCH