New Delhi: More than 15,900 Indians have been brought back since the special flights under ‘Operation Ganga’ began on February 22 to rescue the stranded Indian citizens in Ukraine.
Some 2,135 Indians have been brought back on Sunday by 11 special civilian flights from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries. The number of Indians airlifted by 66 special civilian flights goes up to 13,852, said the Ministry of Civil Aviation.
To 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,” it added.
Among the special Civilian flights on Sunday, 9 landed in New Delhi while 2 reached Mumbai. There were 6 flights from Budapest, 2 from Bucharest, 2 from Rzeszow, and 1 from Kosice.
On Monday, 8 special flights are expected to operate from Budapest (5), Suceava (2) and Bucharest (1), bringing in more than 1500 Indians back home.
Two Air India Express flights carrying Indian evacuees, mostly students, reached here from Budapest and Bucharest via Kuwait, at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA).
The flights IX-1202 (Bucharest) and IX-1602 (Budapest), each flew down 185 Indian nationals (total 370) who had crossed the borders to reach neighbouring Hungary and Romania, from where they took the flights.
The passengers include 120 from Kerala, Tamil Nadu (58), Andhra Pradesh (28), Uttar Pradesh (18), Rajasthan (17), Bihar (16), Maharashtra (15), Telangana (14), Haryana (13) and Delhi (10).
The rest wer from Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Odisha, West Bengal, Punjab, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Meghalaya, and Jammu & Kashmir.
Representatives of various states later took charge of their people to help them with their lodging-boarding or onward journey plans by trains or flights.
Also, another 185 Indians, mostly students, arrived from Ukraine by an Air India Express flight from Bucharest via Kuwait at the CSMIA.
The flight IX-1202 included 102 people from Kerala, besides 18 from Tamil Nadu and 12 from Maharashtra.
There were nine from Bihar, six from Rajasthan, five each from Karnataka and Gujarat, four each from Uttar Pradesh and Odisha, 3 each from Haryana and Chhattisgarh, two each from Madhya Pradesh and Puducherry, and one each from Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Jharkhand.
133 more Telugu students return home
As many as 133 more Telugu students returned home from Ukraine. Of them, 105 students were from Telangana. They arrived in Delhi from various neighbouring countries of Ukraine.
India sends relief material to Ukraine
India kept sending relief materials to Ukraine as part of humanitarian assistance by the Indian Air Force aircraft deployed for evacuation of stranded nationals through the neighbouring countries.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting shared a video of the relief materials being loaded in IAF’s aircraft by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel and these supplies are being sent to Poland from where it would be sent to Ukraine.