Ukraine crisis: Over 7K Indians to be evacuated in next 2 days, says Centre

New Delhi, March 3:  Over 7,400 Indian nationals are expected to be evacuated under the 'Operation Ganga' in the next two days, the government said on Thursday.

The Centre has initiated an airlift operation to evacuate Indians, who have found their way to the neighbouring countries of war-torn Ukraine. It has deployed a number of special charter as well as Indian Air Force flights to ferry back the citizens.

On Friday, 3,500 are expected to be brought back, while over 3,900 will be ferried back on Saturday.

As per a Ministry of Civil Aviation statement, a total of 17 flights are expected to land in India -- 15 in New Delhi and 2 in Mumbai -- on Friday.So far, the Centre has brought back over 6,200 citizens, including the 2,185 coming on Thursday alone through 10 special civilian flights, since the evacuation process began on February 22.

On Wednesday, Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said that over 4,000 Indian students will be evacuated from Romania in the next three days.

Scindia is one of the four Union Ministers, along with Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju and Gen V.K. Singh (retd), who have gone to countries adjoining Ukraine to support and supervise the ongoing evacuation operations.

Similarly, six flights each will be operated on Thursday and Friday.

Furthermore, he said that flights will also be operated from Suceava, Romania.

According to an estimate, a total of 18,000 students are stranded in war-torn Ukraine. However, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Tuesday said that so far, 12,000 Indians have been evacuated from Ukraine, which is 60 per cent of the country's total population in the war-ravaged nation.