The first group of 360 Indians evacuated under “Operation Kaveri” left the instability-ridden Sudan and arrived in New Delhi in the evening on 26th April 2023. The Union External Affairs Minister Dr s Jaishankar posted pictures of the rescued Indians from his Twitter handle to inform this.
Dr S Jaishankar wrote, “India welcomes back its own. Operation Kaveri brings 360 Indian Nationals to the homeland as the first flight reaches New Delhi.”
As the Indian nationals arrived in Delhi from Sudan, ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’, ‘Indian Army Zindabad’, ‘PM Narendra Modi Zindabad’ slogans were chanted by them. The New Delhi-bound flight with 360 Indians onboard left Jeddah Airport earlier today. The Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan was present at the Jeddah Airport to oversee the rescue operation.
“Happy to see off 360 Indians at Jeddah Airport in a flight bound for New Delhi They will be reaching the motherland soon, reuniting with their families Under #OperationKaveri the Government is working relentlessly to evacuate Indian nationals from Sudan & bring them home safely,” Muraleedharan tweeted earlier today after seeing off the 360 Indians.
The evacuation came just days after Mr Jaishankar spoke with his Saudi counterpart. In order to assess the security situation in Sudan, Prime Minister Narendra Modi presided over a high-level meeting on Friday.
“Operation Kaveri” is a government-launched rescue endeavour to bring back endangered Indian residents from Sudan, where the Sudanese Army and paramilitary groups are fighting with each other.
According to person who arrived from Jeddah, around 1000 Indians are present in Jeddah at present. He said that the Indian embassy and the govt helped a lot, and govt is doing fast evacuation.
The Indians were evacuated from Sudan to Saudi Arabia using the opportunity of a 72-hour armistice between the main army and a rebel paramilitary group. Some Indians were evacuated on Saudi ships, while the others were evacuated onboard Indian Navy’s patrol ship INS Sumedha to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. Other vessels of the Indian navy, including INS Teg and INS Tarkash, are also in the region to transport Indians from Port Sudan to Jeddah, from where they are being airlifted to India.
India had stationed two C-130J military transport planes to bring the Indians to India from Jeddah. Today a Boeing C-17 Globemaster was also sent to Jeddah as part of the rescue mission.
After forces loyal to Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, commander of the Sudanese army, and his adversary Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), agreed to a cease-fire, evacuation operations gained momentum. Armed skirmishes have been reported elsewhere as well as in the capital city of Khartoum, but the security situation is still tenuous.