Under this mission, India has already successfully repatriated more than a thousand citizens
India is trying to evacuate civilians trapped in Russian-occupied Ukraine. The Indian government has launched a mission called ‘Operation Ganga’ to bring back Indians stranded in Ukraine. Under this mission, India has already successfully repatriated more than a thousand citizens.
24-hour and seven-day control centers have been set up to help evacuate Indians crossing the border from Ukraine to Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Slovak Republic. A Twitter handle ‘OpGanga Helpline’ has also been prepared for the mission. All the information about the emigration process of the embassies will be available through that Twitter handle.
Thousands of Indians, especially those studying medicine in Ukraine, have been stranded there since Russia launched a “special military operation” to close its airspace as a security measure. However, the Indian embassy assured them that alternative arrangements would be made to help them return to India.
India’s first flight to Bucharest, the Romanian capital under Operation Ganga, returned to Mumbai on Saturday evening with 219 Indians on board. A second evacuation plane with 250 civilians landed in Delhi on Sunday. The third plane evacuated 240 Indians from the Hungarian capital, Budapest, while the fourth and fifth planes flew 198 and 249 passengers from Bucharest to Delhi.
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External Affairs Minister S Jayasankar said on Monday that the sixth plane under Operation Ganga with 240 Indian nationals left Budapest for Delhi. SpiceJet, Indigo and Air India Express have now joined the mission along with Air India aircraft to carry out the rescue operation.
However, the authorities did not allow many students from Ukraine to cross the border into Poland and Romania. Several videos of some of those students asking for help were circulated on social media.
Without adequate food or water, they are trapped in an area of extreme cold. The government had found an alternative train route from Ushorod in western Ukraine to help evacuate students to the Hungarian capital, Budapest.
Following this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday sent four Union ministers to Poland and Romania to oversee the evacuation process. Union Minister for Housing, Urban Affairs, Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Puri, Minister for Law and Justice Kiran Rijiju, Minister for Civil Aviation Jyotiraditya Scindia and Minister of State for Road Transport, Highways and Civil Aviation General VK Singh will be leaving soon as special envoys to the Government of India.