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World / Africa

Nigeria to reopen for international air travel in weeks

Published: 06 Aug 2020 - 08:44 pm | Last Updated: 05 Nov 2021 - 07:06 pm
FILE PHOTO: A woman wears a protective face mask due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Murtala Mohammed International airport in Lagos, Nigeria March 19, 2020. Picture taken March 19, 2020. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja/File Photo

FILE PHOTO: A woman wears a protective face mask due to the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at the Murtala Mohammed International airport in Lagos, Nigeria March 19, 2020. Picture taken March 19, 2020. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja/File Photo

Reuters

ABUJA: Nigeria will reopen for international air travel in a matter of weeks, the aviation minister said on Thursday, without giving a specific date for the resumption after months of closure due to the global coronavirus pandemic.

"It will be in weeks rather than in months," Minister of Aviation Hadi Sirika told a regular briefing in the capital Abuja on coronavirus.

Nigeria began to close its airports in March, a month after Africa's most populous country confirmed its first coronavirus case. Domestic air travel restarted last month.

The country has 44,890 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 900 deaths, figures from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control show.