Over 350 Indians evacuated from Yemen arrived in Kochi and Mumbai in the early hours today in two Indian Air Force planes in the government’s first major mission to rescue its nationals stranded in the strife-torn nation.
The evacuees landed in Mumbai and Kochi in early on Thursday morning in two special flights of Indian Air Force planes carrying them from Djibouti after being evacuated on a navy vessel from Aden.
An IAF C-17 Globemaster plane carrying 190 Indian nationals landed in Mumbai at around 3:25am at Mumbai’s international airport.
This was the second flight in the rescue efforts, as at 2am, an IAF plane carrying 168 Indians aboard, evacuated from Yemen landed in Kochi.
According to defence sources, the flight to Mumbai could not take off on time from Djibouti due to the pending paper work of the evacuees.
Many people did not have even their passports with them leading to delay in flight, the sources said.
The central railway, meanwhile, has offered free-of-cost travelling for the evacuees till their destinations.
The evacuation operation was a very difficult task as not much details were available with the IAF, Wing Commander Vikram Abbi, co-pilot of the flight, told PTI.
Abbi said that the crew were told about the rescue operation on March 30 and the flight departed from India on Wednesday.
One of the evacuees, Mary Amma Vargeese said, she was working as a nurse in a hospital in Aden for past two years when one day she suddenly “heard some exploding sound, after which I stopped going to work.”
“All the shops were closed, we didn’t have food for many days,” she said.
A spokesperson in the external affairs ministry said of the 350 evacuees, 206 belong to Kerala, 40 are from Tamil Nadu, 31 from Maharashtra, 23 from West Bengal and 22 from Delhi, besides other states.
The Indians were evacuated late Monday night by INS Sumitra, which was diverted from its anti-piracy patrol in the region. It waited for hours to get local clearances as heavy fighting was reported in Aden.
