Welcome Back, Says EAM As First Air India Flight With 219 Indians From Ukraine Lands In Mumbai

The Air India evacuation flight took off for Romania's capital Bucharest at around 2 pm on Saturday.

Air India flight from Romania carrying Indian evacuees from Ukraine.(Image: Twitter/@DrSJaishankar)

New Delhi: Amid invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, 219 Indian nationals stranded in Ukraine have have safely reached Mumbai. The Air India evacuation flight took off for Romania's capital Bucharest at around 2 pm on Saturday. As the airspace at Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, has been shut, people are being evacuated from neighbouring countries. 

Union Minister Piyush Goyal welcomed the Indians who arrived in Mumbai. "Since the beginning of this crisis, our main objective was to bring back each & every Indian stranded in Ukraine. 219 students have arrived here. This was the first batch, the second will reach Delhi soon. We'll not stop until all of them are back home," he said. 

 

Welcome back.

First step of #OperationGanga. https://t.co/4DgLIc7GYM

— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) February 26, 2022

Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport (CSMIA) has blocked a special corridor for the Indian students arrriving from Ukraine. A team of Airport Health Organisation will conduct mandatory temperature screening of the returnees as per the guidelines laid down by the government, said CSMIA spokesperson. 

The returnees would be required to produce Covid-19 vaccination certificate or a negative RT-PCR report on arrival. If anyone does not possess either of the two, then they would undergo RT-PCR test at the airport. Cost of the test will be borne by the airport, said CSMIA spokesperson. 

Meanwhile, second evacuation flight took off from Delhi on Saturday at around 11:40 am and was expected to touch down in Bucharest at 6:30 pm Indian Standard Time, reported news agency ANI. 

Stranded Indian nationals in Ukraine who reached the Ukraine-Romania border by road were taken to Bucharest by Indian government officials from where they were evacuted in the Air India flights.