Thiruvananthapuram: Nearly 50 Indian nurses who were abducted by suspected Islamist militants in Iraq have been released and will soon be flown home, an Indian official said on Friday.

The nurses, all from the southern Indian state of Kerala, were being moved from the northern city of Mosul to the city of Arbil, some 80km away, said P. Sivadasan, an aide to Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy. Sivadasan and Chandy both spoke to some of the nurses by phone.

Officials at India’s foreign ministry were not immediately available to comment on the status of the nurses.

The nurses were abducted earlier this month from a hospital in the militant-controlled city of Tikrit in Iraq.

The abductions, along with the capture of 39 other Indian workers in Mosul, have left Indian authorities scrambling to secure their release and their fate is the first foreign crisis for the new right-wing government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

“Some here... they are saying... we will go to Arbil,” Tincy Thomas, one of the nurses, told AFP by telephone, adding that the group had recently been moved to Mosul from Tikrit, where their ordeal began on June 11.

An Indian diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the group were expected later on Friday in Arbil, which is a short drive from Mosul but has been insulated from the unrest.

The diplomat said that a team of Indian government officials were waiting to receive them in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region, and that arrangements were being made to fly the nurses back to India.

He said that the group was separate from another 39 Indian workers being held in Mosul, Iraq’s second-biggest city and the first to fall in an offensive that has overrun swathes of territory north and west of Baghdad.

The father of one of the nurses, C. Joseph from southern Kerala state, reported that five of the women had sustained minor injuries while being moved from Tikrit to Mosul due to an explosion.

‘Not to worry’

“She told us not to worry and asked us to pray,” Joseph told AFP, saying he had spoken to his daughter on her mobile phone late on Thursday which she had hidden from her captors.

The father of a second nurse called Shruti S. Nair, like Joseph from the Kottayam district of Kerala, said that his daughter was unharmed and the women had been treated well.

A spokesman for the Indian foreign ministry, confirming the nurses were changing location on Thursday, denied there had been a bomb blast but said some of them had sustained minor injuries from broken glass.

Neither of the nurses’ fathers was available for comment after news broke that the women were to be released.

The Indian foreign ministry also declined to comment on the news.

India estimates that around 120 of its nationals have been caught up in the unrest in Iraq, where some 10,000 Indian expatriates are working.

The country’s foreign ministry last month announced it would stop granting its nationals permission to travel to Iraq for work, while it advised those travelling for other purposes to cancel their plans.

Along with the Indian workers caught up in the violence, dozens of Turkish nationals have also been seized.

More than 30 Turkish truck drivers were freed on Thursday after three weeks in captivity, but a separate group of almost 50 Turks seized in an attack on the Turkish consulate in Mosul last month remain in captivity.