Indian students being evacuated from Sumy in Ukraine today
Kyiv: A day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held telephonic discussions with the Presidents of Russia and Ukraine expressing concerns over the safety and security of the Indian students stranded in Sumy, both Russia and Ukraine today opened a humanitarian corridor to evacuate the students and civilians as well from Sumy to Poltava, a city in central Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs today announced the declaration of ceasefire to provide humanitarian corridors from Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov, Mariupol.
Also read: Russia invasion of Ukraine: Modi playing the role of the peacemaker?
According to State Emergency Service of Ukraine, the evacuation from Sumy region and Irpin was underway and over 150 people had already been evacuated by 1 pm (local time) today and more evacuations were in progress. Authorities claimed in Sumy, in the area of the air strike, 21 dead bodies were found, including two children, today. The investigation was opened, the regional prosecutor’s office stated.
Arindam Bagchi, Spokesperson of Indian Ministry of External Affairs, tweeted: “Happy to inform that we have been able to move out all Indian students from Sumy. They are currently en route to Poltava, from where they will board trains to western Ukraine. Flights under OperationGanga are being prepared to bring them home.”
Happy to inform that we have been able to move out all Indian students from Sumy.
They are currently en route to Poltava, from where they will board trains to western Ukraine.
Flights under #OperationGanga are being prepared to bring them home. pic.twitter.com/s60dyYt9U6
— Randhir Jaiswal (@MEAIndia) March 8, 2022
Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also called on Russia to agree on other humanitarian corridors in Ukraine as well. However, it accused Russian army of continuing to break the agreements on the humanitarian corridor for a fourth day in a row in Mariupon, where it claimed evacuation of civilians was “impossible”. It stated Russian occupational forces were continuously shelling Mariupol and Kharkiv, and also hit the buildings of foreign diplomatic organisations (ex: Consulate General of Greece and the Special Monitoring Mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
According to the Joint Forces Operation (JFO), the Russian occupiers launched an attack in the direction of the humanitarian corridor, and did not let people out of the city in Mariupol. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on the international community to “condemn these actions by Russia”.
In the meantime, 410 Indians were airlifted today by 2 special civilian flights from Suceava and brought back by special civilian flights. The Indian Ministry of Civil Aviation stated that about 18 thousand Indians had been brought back by special flights so far from the battle zone under ‘Operation Ganga’ which began on February 22, 2022. The number of Indians airlifted by 75 special civilian flights has now gone up to 15521. The Indian Air Force had flown 12 missions to bring back 2467 passengers, as part of the ‘Operation Ganga’, and carried over 32 tonne relief material.
Among the civilian flights, 4575 passengers had so far been brought from Bucharest by 21 flights, 1820 from Suceave by 9 flights, 5571 from Budapest by 28 flights, 909 passengers by 5 flights from Kosice, 2404 Indians from Rzeszow by 11 flights, and 242 persons by a flight from Kyiv, the Ministry stated.
Airline wise data is as follows:
– global bihari bureau
