Ukraine crisis: Over 2K Indians to be brought back on Saturday

New Delhi, March 4: Over 2,000 Indian nationals are expected to be evacuated under the 'Operation Ganga' on Saturday. The Centre has initiated an airlift operation to evacuate Indians, who have found their way to 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.

"Tomorrow, 11 special civilian flights are expected to bring back more than 2,200 Indians, with 10 landing in New Delhi and one in Mumbai," a statement by the Ministry of Civil Aviation said. "Five flights will originate from Budapest, 2 from Rzeszow and 4 from Suceava. Four C-17 aircraft are airborne for Romania, Poland and Slovakia, which are expected to reach late at night and early morning tomorrow."

On Friday, 17 special flights arrived back to India from Ukraine's neighbouring countries, including 14 civilian flights and three C-17 IAF flights. "One more civilian flight is expected to arrive later in the day. While civilian flights carried 3,142 persons, C-17 flights evacuated 630 passengers." As per the statement, so far, over 9,364 Indians have been evacuated by 43 special civilian flights.

"Seven flights of C-17 have so far evacuated 1,428 passengers and taken 9.7 tonnes of relief material. Today's civilian flights included 4 from Bucharest, 2 from Kosice, 4 from Budapest, 3 from Rzeszow and 2 from Suceava, while IAF flew 2 flights from Bucharest and 1 from Budapest."

The Centre has also sent four Union Ministers, Hardeep Singh Puri, Kiren Rijiju, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Gen V.K. Singh (retd), to countries adjoining Ukraine to support and supervise the ongoing evacuation operations.