It was an emotional homecoming for 18 Keralites including children and a pregnant nurse as they landed in the Kochi International Airport at nearby Nedumbassery on Thursday morning from war-torn libya.
In all 29 Indians - six families from Kerala and three from Tamil Nadu - who had been stranded in libya for the past 47 days returned to the country on Thursday after were evacuated from there. They landed back in India hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a BJP poll rally near Kochi on Wednesdaynight that their return was imminent.
The Kochi airport witnessed emotional scenes as the returnees hugged their relatives as they walked out of the immigration area at about 10.30 AM Thursday, almost an hour after landing. Cries of relief escaped the throats of relatives, who had been waiting for their dear ones since early morning, as they spotted them coming out of the airport.
"For over the past one month, our existence there was miserable. Food and water were there but there were problems in availability… The situation was such that we were not even able to withdraw money from banks. However, I am happy that we are here now," said a nurse hailing from Ernakulam district.
They had travelled first from libyan city Tripoli to Istanbul, Turkey and from there to Dubai. The Emirates flight from Dubai carrying the 18 Keralites landed at the Kochi airport at 9.30 AM. The Tamil Nadu natives returning from libya were taken to Chennai from Dubai, said RS Kannan, CEO of Norka, the agency for Non-Resident Keralites Affairs.
A Kerala nurse, Sanu Sathyan, and her one-and-a-half-year-old son Pranav had been killed after a rocket fell in their house in Tripoli on March 25. Most of the nurses had been working in the hospital where Sanu had worked and they decided to leave libya after the incident, they said.
"I was also working in that hospital. We moved into another house owned by a libyan after this incident," said Abraham, one of those who returned. They also said that they were forced to leave because children had begun falling ill in the terrible conditions of the war-ravaged country.