India has brought back 13,300 people in 63 flights from Ukraine and its neighbouring countries since February 24 after the Russian military offensive. Nearly 3, 000 Indians were airlifted by 15 evacuation flights from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries on Saturday. As many as 11 flights are expected to take off on Sunday from Budapest, Kosice, Rzeszow, and Bucharest to bring back more than 2,200 people.“India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours. Our main focus is now on evacuating Indian students from Sumy. We are exploring multiple options for their evacuation,” External Affairs Ministry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at a media briefing.
On the overall evacuation mission, he said over 13,300 people have been brought back home in 63 flights. The Spokesperson said 13 flights are scheduled for the next 24 hours to bring back Indians under “Operation Ganga”.
In a statement, the Ministry of Civil Aviation on Saturday said that 11 flights with more than 2,200 Indian evacuees will operate from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries to India on Sunday.
“Today’s (Saturday’s) civilian flights included five from Budapest (Hungary), four from Suceava (Romania), one from Kosice (Slovakia), and two from Rzeszow (Poland),” the Ministry said. The civilian flights are being operated by Indian carriers such as IndiGo, Air India, Vistara, SpiceJet, and AirAsia India.
According to the Indian Air Force, three aircraft carrying 629 Indians from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries landed at the Hindon airbase on Saturday morning. “Till date, the Indian Air Force (IAF) has flown 10 sorties to bring back 2,056 passengers, while taking 26 tonnes of relief load to these countries, as part of Operation Ganga,” the IAF statement said. Three C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft of the IAF, which had taken off on Friday from the Hindon airbase, returned on Saturday morning, it mentioned.
“These flights evacuated 629 Indian nationals from Romania, Slovakia, and Poland. These flights also carried 16.5 tonnes of relief load from India to these countries,” it added. The IAF is conducting its flights using C-17 military transport planes.
An AirAsia India’s first evacuation flight from Suceava in Romania carrying 170 Indian evacuees from
Ukraine landed at Delhi early morning. The passengers were received by the
Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on their arrival in India, said the official.AirAsia India aircraft, an Airbus A320Neo, departed from Delhi at 8.30 am Friday for its destination via Dubai and departed from Suceava for Delhi at 6.45 pm (local time), he said.