Headlines
Evacuated Indians reach Djibouti on way back home
New Delhi, April 1
The 350 Indian nationals
evacuated from strife-torn Yemen have reached Djibouti and will be
brought back to India by an Indian Air Force plane on Wednesday,
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj has said.
In tweets on
Wednesday, Sushma Swaraj said that Minister of State for External
Affairs V.K. Singh was in Djibouti, a country neighbouring Yemen, and
was coordinating the operations with the Indian Navy and the Indian Air
Force.
She said one IAF Globemaster transport plane with evacuated Indian nationals will land in Kochi and the other in Mumbai.
"Indian
nationals evacuated from Aden by Indian Navy have reached Djibouti.
They will be brought back to India by Indian Air Force today
(Wednesday). One plane will land in Kochi and the other in Mumbai late
this evening," Sushma Swaraj said.
External affairs ministry
spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin said that of thed 350 Indian nationals
evacuated, 206 were from Kerala, 40 from Tamil Nadu, 31 from
Maharashtra, 23 from West Bengal, 22 from Delhi, 15 from Karnataka and
13 from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
The stranded Indian nationals were taken to INS Sumitra and it set sail for Djibouti on late Tuesday night from Aden.
Under
an operation named "Op Raahat", two warships -- destroyer INS Mumbai
and stealth frigate INS Tarkash -- are also on their way to Djibouti, a
country located on the Horn of Africa in the Gulf of Aden.
Fighting
has been going on in Yemen since January 22, when the legitimate
government under President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi was ousted by Shiite
Houthi forces.
This has provoked the recent military campaign by a coalition of 10 countries lead by Saudi Arabia.