3,426 Indians evacuated from Iran, 818 from Israel

India’s Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said that India, so far have evacuated 3,426 Indian nationals from Iran and 818 Indian nationals from Israel in Operation Sindhu.

Addressing a weekly briefing on Thursday, Jaiswal said, “We launched Operation Sindhu on the 18th of June. We have around 10,000 people from the Indian community in Iran, around 40,000 people in Israel who are Indian nationals.”

“From Iran, we have so far evacuated 3,426 Indian nationals, 11 OCI cardholders, 9 Nepalese nationals and some Sri Lankan nationals as well. I’ll give you the exact figure. Plus one Iranian national who happens to be the spouse of an Indian national. In all, we mounted 14 flights to bring back Indian nationals from Iran. These flights, they flew from Mashhad, as well as from Yerevan in Armenia, and Ashgabat, Turkmenistan,” he added.

Further, Jaiswal confirmed that, “one more flight is to come from or is on its way from Armenia and it will land later this evening. With that, we would have completed all the people who wish to be evacuated from Iran and they would be back home.”

In Israel, 818 Indian nationals were evacuated in four flights. Due to Israel’s closed airspace, Indians were taken to Jordan and Egypt, from where special flights were operated to bring them back home. The MEA expressed gratitude to the governments of Egypt, Jordan, and Israel for their support.

As far as Israel is concerned, we have so far evacuated 818 Indian nationals in four flights. As you are aware, the airspace in Israel was closed, so we had to take our people to bordering countries, that is Jordan and Egypt, and from both these countries they were put on special flights and they came back home. We are thankful to the governments of Egypt, Jordan for this support,” he said.

“Our embassies in Israel, in Jordan, in Egypt, collaborated very closely with the ministry headquarters here in mounting this operation. Once again, we’d like to thank the governments of Israel, Jordan, and Egypt for the support in Operation Sindhu,” he added.

Jaiswal also thanked the governments of Iran for opening their airspace for evacuation.

“We made a request and they hope to open the airspace for us to evacuate our nationals. We are grateful to the government of Iran for this special gesture. We are also thankful to the government of Turkmenistan and Armenia for helping us evacuate our people,” he said.

Source: NDTV

- Agencies