Ukraine Crisis: 3 Flights Under Ops Ganga Bring Back 674 Indian Students From War-Torn Sumy

As the students exited the Delhi airport and greeted their parents, who had waited five to six hours to see their children, emotions were running high.

Representational Image. (File Photo)

New Delhi: Three aircraft carrying 674 people, primarily students, were evacuated from the crisis-torn city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine on Friday, with the returnees telling the horrors they experienced and how they managed to escape the two-week-long fighting, news agency PTI reported.

Two Air India and IndiGo planes carrying 461 passengers arrived at the Indira Gandhi International Airport at 5.45 a.m. and 12.20 p.m., respectively, while an Indian Air Force (IAF) C-17 carrying 213 passengers landed at the Hindon air station at 12.15 p.m.

Although there was no official notification from the government that the evacuation operation from Ukraine had been completed, these three flights from Rzeszow, Poland, were thought to be among the final ones.

As the students exited the Delhi airport and greeted their parents, who had waited five to six hours to see their children, emotions were running high.

Many parents and family members gave sweets and garlanded their children with tears in their eyes, while others greeted them with bouquets and embrace after their arrival at IGI airport gates 4 and 5.

Some family members yelled slogans such as "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" and "Modi hai to Mumkin Hai."

Experience Of Indian Students Evacuated From Sumy 

"Even now that I'm back in India, the situation that I have gone through will continue to haunt me for days. Life in Sumy was terrible during the war. I never thought that I'll make it to India alive," Dhruv Pandita was quoted by PTI in its report.

Pandita claimed that he along with three other students in Sumy were held hostages.

"We were confined in a bunker and had no water and food. We had to melt ice to get drinking water. We were not allowed to move from there," Pandita told PTI.

Students who arrived at Hindon Air Base on an Indian Air Force jet at 12.30 p.m. told a similar tale of suffering.

Viradha Lakshmi, a Trichur, Kerala resident, arrived at the airbase with her three-year-old white kitten.

"I never wanted to leave my cat in Ukraine to die in bomb shelling. Our journey to Poland was halted due to security reasons and hence we reached Poland from Sumy in two days. We were not anticipating that we will survive," Lakshmi told PTI.

When the sirens wailed, Mahima Rathi, a medical student at Sumy and a native of Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, said they had to hurry to the bunkers. 

"Whenever the siren blew, we had to take shelter in bunkers. We were all very terrified as we never knew whether we would be able to survive and return safely. We are now at ease after returning to India," Rathi said.

Hanna, a Kerala native, was the final student to disembark from the C-17 plane at Hindon.

She expressed gratitude to the authorities for saving Ukrainian students.

"We have been through a lot during the past few days and I thank everybody who took the initiative to bring us back home. We have seen a lot including explosions in this short period of life," Hanna said.

Operation Ganga

Taking to Twitter, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said, "Operation Ganga, undertaken at the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered due to both leadership and commitment. We are thankful to all those who facilitated its objectives."

#OperationGanga pic.twitter.com/1nw8ZnLw3o

— Dr. S. Jaishankar (@DrSJaishankar) March 11, 2022

Following New Delhi's intensive diplomatic engagement with the two parties, India evacuated its people from Sumy on Tuesday after Russia and Ukraine established a humanitarian corridor for their evacuation.

Around 18,000 Indians have returned to India as part of 'Operation Ganga,' which began on February 26, two days after Russia commenced its armed incursion in Ukraine.

(With PTI Inputs)