New Delhi: The Civil Aviation Ministry said on Monday that more than 17,400 Indians had been brought back from war-ravaged Ukraine and its neighbouring countries through special flights since February 22 under Operation Ganga.
On Monday, 1314 people were airlifted by seven special civilian flights from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries, reported news agency ANI.
"Number of Indians airlifted by 73 special civilian flights goes up to 15,206. One C-17 IAF flight, with 201 Indians on board, is expected to arrive in evening today. IAF had earlier flown 10 sorties to bring back 2056 passengers, as part of Operation Ganga," ANI quoted the ministry as saying.
Of the flights that arrived on Monday, four landed in New Delhi and two in Mumbai. Another flight is expected to land in the late evening on Monday. "There were five flights from Budapest, and one each from Bucharest and Suceava," the ministry said.
The ministry also informed that two special civilian flights were expected to operate from Suceava on Tuesday and would bring back nearly 400 people.
Earlier today, the Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said that out of 20,000 Indian citizens, more than 16,000 have been evacuated and around 3,000 are still in Ukraine’s neighbouring countries. He added that around 600 Indians are still in Sumy and the government is making efforts to evacuate them.
The Indian government has launched Operation Ganga to evacuate Indian citizens from Ukraine and its neighbouring countries.
As Ukraine has shut its airspace due to the conflict with Russia, India is currently evacuating its nationals by moving them via land routes to the east European country's neighbours -- Romania, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia -- and then flying them out from there.