New Delhi: India has evacuated 1,377 citizens from war-torn Ukraine in the past 24 hours, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said.
“Six flights have now departed for India in the last 24 hours, including the first flights from Poland. Carried back 1377 more Indian nationals from Ukraine,” Jaishankar said in a tweet.
India ramped up its evacuation efforts after 21-year-old Naveen Shekharappa, a final-year medical student from Karnataka’s Haveri, died in Kharkiv shelling.
Under Operation Ganga, launched to evacuate citizens in Ukraine, India will operate over 26 flights in the next three days. With Ukraine’s airspace closed, airports in Romania, Hungary, Poland, and the Slovak Republic are being used to fly out Indians.
Indian Air Force has sent a C-17 aircraft to Romania as part of Operation Ganga.
Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla told reporters that no Indian is left in the Ukraine capital Kyiv.
Russia has launched an offensive on civilian areas in several cities and asked Kyiv residents to flee their homes. Satellite images showed a long convoy of Russian troops on the roads leading to Kyiv. Hundreds of tanks, towed artillery, armored and logistical vehicles can be seen in the images released by a US-based space technology company.
Around 16,000 Indian students are still stranded in Ukraine. Since the Russian forces launched their invasion of Ukraine, stranded students have been desperately seeking help through media and social media, forwarding videos of their plight from railway stations, border posts, and bunkers. Alleging manhandling, they said they were not being allowed to board trains.
Around 9,000 Indian nationals have left by various special flights.
