The external affairs ministry on Tuesday said the first group of Indians stranded in Sudan left the conflict-hit nation in an Indian Navy warship for Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah. The external affairs ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted photos of the Indians aboard the INS Sumedha.
“First batch of stranded Indians leave Sudan under Operation Kaveri. INS Sumedha with 278 people onboard departs Port Sudan for Jeddah,” Bagchi tweeted, with photos and a five-second video, where the evacuated citizens could be heard chanting ‘Jai Hind’ and waving the tricolour to thank the government for arranging for their evacuation.
“First batch of stranded Indians leave Sudan under Operation Kaveri. INS Sumedha with 278 people onboard departs Port Sudan for Jeddah,” Bagchi tweeted, with photos and a five-second video, where the evacuated citizens could be heard chanting ‘Jai Hind’ and waving the tricolour to thank the government for arranging for their evacuation.
The minister of state for external affairs V Muraleedharan is expected to be in Jeddah to oversee the evacuation process. India sent two heavy-lift aircraft to Saudi Arabia and a ship to the coast of Sudan to begin the evacuation of Indian citizens who were caught in the conflict, the external affairs ministry said on April 23.
Read | India launches Operation Kaveri to evacuate stranded citizens from war-hit Sudan
On Monday, the external affairs minister S Jaishankar said that 500 Indian citizens reached the Port of Sudan and were awaiting evacuation. Other nations are also scrambling to evacuate citizens from conflict-hit Sudan. The US and the UK announced that they flew diplomats out of the country. France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy and Spain also evacuated diplomats as well as their families and even citizens from other countries.
China also evacuated the first batch of its citizens from conflict-hit Sudan on Tuesday. South Korea also is scheduled to send a military aircraft to evacuate its citizens trapped there. A 72-hour ceasefire has been declared by the warring factions in Sudan and foreign nations who have their citizens caught in the conflict are eyeing it as an opportunity to rescue their citizens.
At least 400 people have died and several thousands have been wounded as fighting erupted on April 15 between armed forces chief General Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
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