Under ‘Operation Ganga’ to rescue Indian citizens, 17 special flights have come back to the country today from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries, including 14 civilian flights and 3 C-17 IAF flights. One more Civilian flight is expected to arrive later in the day.
While Civilian flights carried 3142 persons, C-17 flights evacuated 630 passengers. So far, over 9364 Indians have been evacuated by 43 special civilian flights. 7 flights of C-17 have so far evacuated 1428 passengers and taken 9.7 tonnes of relief material.
On Friday, civilian flights included 4 from Bucharest, 2 from Kosice, 4 from Budapest, 3 from Rzeszow and 2 from Suceava, while IAF flew 2 flights from Bucharest and 1 from Budapest.
Today, 11 special civilian flights are expected to bring back more than 2200 Indians, with 10 landing in New Delhi and one in Mumbai. 5 flights will originate from Budapest, 2 from Rzeszow and 4 from Suceava. Four C-17 aircraft are airborne for Romania, Poland and Slovakia, which are expected to reach late at night and early morning tomorrow.
Thousands of Indian nationals are being brought back from Ukraine under Operation Ganga. According to a statement by the foreign ministry, over 10,300 Indian nationals were brought back in 48 flights under evacuation mission ‘Operation Ganga’ so far. However, still, 2,000-3,000 are stuck in the war-torn region. Of which 300 Indians are stranded in Kharkiv and 700 in Sumy.
Arindam Bagchi, the spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), said India has not seen any movement after it emerged that Russia and Ukraine on Thursday agreed to the need for the creation of humanitarian corridors to help civilians leave the conflict zones.
Bagchi said around 20,000 Indians have left Ukraine’s borders since India issued its first travel advisories in mid-February. He suggested that it has now emerged that the total number of Indians in Ukraine was more than the 20,000 citizens who had registered with the embassy in Kyiv.
