New Delhi
The Ministry of External Affairs on Tuesday announced that it has evacuated all Indian students from Sumy, the last conflict zone where some 800 students were stuck in difficult situations with water and food scarcity since the eruption of war between Ukraine and Russia.
"Happy to inform that we have been able to move out all Indian students from Sumy. They are currently en route to Poltava, from where they will board trains to western Ukraine. Flights under #OperationGanga are being prepared to bring them home," tweeted MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. He also shared a video of the students being served tea before the evacuation:
Sources said all the students from Sumy have boarded buses for Poltava from where they could be taken to the border in a day and if all goes well, they should be able to reach India by Friday.
Under 'Operation Ganga', Indian military and civilian planes have airlifted about 18,000 Indians from neighbouring countries of Ukraine and flown back home by special flights so far.
In all 410 Indians were brought back on Tuesday by special Civilian flights from Ukraine's neighbouring countries by 2 special civilian flights from Suceava, said the Ministery of Civil Aviation press release.
With this, about 18,000 Indians have been brought back through the special flights which began on February 22, 2022.
The number of Indians airlifted by 75 special civilian flights goes up to 15521. IAF had flown 12 missions to bring back 2467 passengers, as part of Operation Ganga, and carried over 32-tonne relief material, read the release.
The humanitarian toll has increased amid Russian military operations in Ukraine that were launched on February 24. As per the UN, around 1.5 million refugees have fled Ukraine.
Sailors being evacuated by the Indian embassy in Ukraine
In the meanwhile, the Indian embassy in Ukraine also evacuated 75 sailors stranded in Mykolaiv Port of Ukraine. On Monday buses arranged by Mission evacuated a total of 57 sailors including 2 Lebanese and 3 Syrians.
The remaining 23 sailors are being evacuated on Tuesday.
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