Over 6,200 Indians have returned from Ukraine to India through special civilian flights, as India has mounted a massive rescue operation to bring back Indian citizens stranded in the war-hit country, the Civil Aviation Ministry said.
The Civil Aviation Ministry said that the External Affairs Ministry, in close coordination with the Civil Aviation Ministry, is making all efforts for quick evacuation of stranded Indian students to India. The Indian Airlines are putting their resources in faster evacuation process.
Four Union Ministers - Hardeep Singh Puri, Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Kiren Rijiju and Gen (Retd) VK Singh have gone to countries adjoining Ukraine to support and supervise these operations.
Indian civilian planes as well as Indian Air Force planes are regularly bringing back stranded Indian students, the ministry stated.
The evacuation process, which began on 22nd February, has brought back over 6200 persons so far, including 2185 persons coming today through 10 special civilian flights.
Today’s flights included five from Bucharest, 2 from Budapest, 1 from Kosice, and 2 from Rzeszow by Civilian airlines. In addition, 3 IAF flights are bringing more Indians today between 11 pm on March 3 and early morning of March 4.
Four IAF flights have already brought 798 Indian nationals between midnight of March 2 and early morning of March 3. The number of civilian flights is be scaled up further, and more than 7400 persons are expected to be brought through special flights in next two days. 3500 persons are expected to be brought back tomorrow and over 3900 on March 5.
