Operation Kaveri: 186 Indians take off from Jeddah in Kochi-bound flight, 3,000 leave Sudan so far

As Operation Kaveri is underway, the Kochi-bound ninth flight departed from Jeddah with 186 passengers. Around 3,000 stranded Indians have left the crisis-hit Sudan for Jeddah till now, as India intensified Operation Kaveri to rescue stranded citizens from Khartoum on Friday.

"9th outbound flight departs from Jeddah. 186 passengers onboard this flight are flying to Kochi," Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted.

"Nearly 3,000 persons have now left Sudan under Operation Kaveri," Bagchi also confirmed on Twitter

Earlier, External Affairs Minister Jaishankar, on Sunday, said that nearly 2300 evacuees Indians have reached India.
"A C-130 Indian Airforce flight has landed in New Delhi with 40 passengers. With this flight, around 2,300 people have reached India," EAM Jaishankar tweeted.

On Saturday evening, 365 Indians from Sudan arrived in New Delhi under Operation Kaveri, while a flight carrying 231 Indian passengers reached the national capital on Saturday morning. As a ceasefire has been called in Sudan, several countries, including India, are attempting to evacuate their citizens from a conflict-ridden nation.

Earlier, Indian Navy ship, INS Teg, successfully evacuated 288 stranded Indians under Operation Kaveri from the crisis-hit Sudan on Saturday. This was the 14th batch of stranded citizens headed to Jeddah to return to India.
Previously, INS Sumedha, stationed at Port Sudan, had also left the crisis-hit country with 300 passengers onboard for Jeddah.

The Indian government under Operation Kaveri, is set to evacuate about 3,000 Indian-origin passengers from Sudan.

Sudan is experiencing bloodshed due to clashes between the army and paramilitary forces. Even though there is a 72-hour ceasefire, there have been allegations of violence.

Fighting has erupted between soldiers loyal to Sudanese army leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, paramilitary Rapid Support Soldiers (RSF) commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

(Times of India)