|HT|
The first flight from Romania carrying Indians evacuated from war-torn Ukraine left for Mumbai a while ago, minister of external affairs S Jaishankar said on Saturday. Evacuees were taken to Bucharest for an alternative route of departure after the Ukrainian airspace shut down due to escalating tension with Russia. The flight will arrive at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport at 9pm Indian time and the evacuees will be received by Union minister Piyush Goyal.
Taking to Twitter, Jaishankar shared pictures of the evacuees on the flight and said India was making progress in repatriation efforts. “Regarding evacuation of Indian nationals from Ukraine, we are making progress. Our teams are working on the ground round the clock. I am personally monitoring. The first flight to Mumbai with 219 Indian nationals has taken off from Romania,” Jaishankar tweeted. Earlier in the day, the MEA said the first batch of Indian citizens evacuated from Ukraine had reached Romania via the Suceava border crossing. Meanwhile, a second evacuation flight (AI1942) is expected to return to Delhi early on Sunday with another 250 Indian nationals, officials mentioned.
Air India is set to operate more flights to Bucharest and Hungarian capital Budapest to bring back Indians stranded in Ukraine via the alternative routes.
Prior to the closure of the Ukrainian airspace, Air India had operated a flight to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on February 22 that brought 240 people back to the country.
As many as 20,000 Indians, mainly students, were stuck in Ukraine when Russia invaded its border.
(Except for the headline and the pictorial description, this story has not been edited by THE DEN staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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