Over 6200 Indians return from Ukraine: Centre

More than 7400 Indians expected to arrive in next two days

File photo of Ukrainian Capital Kyiv. (Pixabay)

New Delhi: India has mounted a massive rescue operation named ‘Operation Ganga’ to bring back Indian citizens stranded in Ukraine.

The Ministry of External Affairs, in close coordination with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, is making all efforts to bring the Indian students back to India at a fast pace. Indian Airlines are putting their resources in a faster evacuation process.

Four Union Ministers- Hardeep Singh Puri, Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Kiren Rijiju, and Gen (Retd) V.K. 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 evacuation process, which began on 22^nd February, has brought back over 6200 persons so far, including 2185 persons coming today through 10 special civilian flights, the Ministry of Civil Aviation informed in a press release.

Today’s flights included 5 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 the early morning of March 4.

Four IAF flights have already brought 798 Indian nationals between midnight of March 2 and the early morning of March 3.

“The number of civilian flights is being scaled up further, and more than 7400 persons are expected to be brought through special flights in the next two days. 3500 persons are expected to be brought back tomorrow and over 3900 on 5^th March,” the release said.

The tentative schedule of special flights for today is as below:

(Press Release)