The flight of Indian carrier Indigo carrying 231 indian passengers reached Delhi on Saturday, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed on Twitter. "231 Indians reach home safely as another flight reaches New Delhi," tweets EAM Dr S Jaishankar. IndiGo has joined ‘Operation Kaveri’ in order to boost the repatriation efforts of the government. 231 stranded Indians took off from Saudi Arabian city Jeddah. Under its evacuation mission 'Operation Kaveri', India is taking the evacuees from Sudan to the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah from where they are returning home.
The airline is operating these flights with A321 aircraft. IndiGo is closely liaising with the government to offer support for more such evacuation flights. The passengers have been evacuated from conflict-torn Sudan.
“Indigo joins #OperationKaveri. 231 Indians in a flight to New Delhi from Jeddah. With this 5th outbound flight, around 1600 reached or airborne for India. Happy journey. Our Mission continues,” Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan tweeted. The airline is operating these flights with A321 aircraft. IndiGo is closely liaising with the government to offer support for more such evacuation flights.
"We have offered our services for charter flights to Jeddah under the Indian Government's Operation Kaveri rescue mission of our citizens from Sudan. We are still awaiting details from the ministry to launch these flights, nothing has been confirmed as of yet," IndiGo Airlines said in a statement.
The airline will be operating two flights, bringing over 450 Indian citizens back to their homeland over the weekend. The airline crew came forward to respond to the critical humanitarian need of the hour, enabling the safe return of the stranded citizens back to their homes. Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Friday interacted with Indians put up at the transit facility in Jeddah. The evacuees told MoS that they were feeling at home.
Earlier, the 12th batch of Indian Air Force C-130J flight with 135 stranded Indians has reached Jeddah from crisis-hit Sudan. On Friday, the Indian Air Force C-130J evacuated the 10th and 11th batches of 135 passengers from Port Sudan to Jeddah after the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) agreed to extend their ceasefire amid ongoing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western Darfur region.
The Sudanese army had said it would extend the ceasefire "for an additional 72 hours" following mediation efforts by Saudi Arabia and the United States in the final hours of the repeatedly broken three-day truce, due to end at midnight (22:00 GMT) on Thursday. Sudan has been on the boil as a result of the ongoing clashes between the army and paramilitary forces. There have been reports of violence and clashes even during the ongoing 72-hour ceasefire.