The Federal Government of Nigeria has sent a fact-finding team to Libya to investigate slave trading reports involving Nigerian victims in the North African country.
The team is expected to meet with officials of the Libyan government, Nigerian embassy officials and Nigerian citizens in the country, and members of international agencies working on migration issues in Libya.
The team led by Foreign Affairs Minister, Geoffrey Onyeama, also includes Director General of National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Julie Okah-Donli, and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Diaspora Matters, Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
The team reportedly departed Abuja for Wednesday morning aboard a Nigerian Air Force jet.
The move is believed to have been instigated by a viral CNN report exposing cases of Nigerians living in slave-like conditions and being sold off as slave labour.
Observers say the fact-finding mission is likely to lead to mass evacuation of Nigerians from the crisis-ridden country, an order President Muhammadu Buhari gave a while ago.