Amid the escalating crisis in Ukraine, India government under Operation Ganga has brought back Indian citizens in record numbers. India has flown 13,700 citizens - who were stuck in war-hit Ukraine - back to safety on special flights that were started last week, the government said in a statement on Saturday.
Additionally, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for another high-level meeting on Saturday evening to discuss the situation in war-hit Ukraine and India's evacuation efforts to bring back its citizens, official sources said.
India on Saturday said its main focus now is on the evacuation of around 700 Indian students stranded in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy which has been witnessing bombings and airstrikes. At a media briefing, External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said India hopes to evacuate its citizens from Kharkiv and Pisochyn in the next few hours.
"Our main focus is now on evacuating Indian students from Sumy. We are exploring multiple options for their evacuation," he said.
On Saturday, nearly 3,000 people reached the country - on 15 flights (12 civilian and 3 Air force aircraft). Amid calls for safety of thousands as shelling continues in the major cities of Ukraine, the government has been operating special flights to the neighbouring countries - Poland, Slovak Republic, Romania and Hungary - with the Ukranian airspace closed for civilian flights.
In a tweet, the Indian embassy in Ukraine said that all citizens from the city of Pisochyn were evacuated. The war-hit city of Sumy is also in focus.
India launched "Operation Ganga" to evacuate its nationals and sent four Union ministers as the prime minister's special envoys to Ukraine's neighbours to coordinate the exercise, as a part of the Operation Ganga, the government mission to ensure return of the citizens from Ukraine, 27 control centres have been set up through border crossing points with Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovak Republic.
(With inputs from agencies)
