Last Batch Of Indian Students Stranded In Ukraine’s Sumy Successfully Evacuated

Mar 9,2022: The last batch of the Indian students who were stranded in Ukraine’s Sumy was successfully evacuated with the help of the Indian government on Tuesday. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, the Indian nationals are currently en route to Poltava, from where they will board trains to western Ukraine. Notably, this come after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to both Ukrainian and Russian Presidents about the safe evacuations of the students from the war zone. During the telephonic conversation with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the Indian PM had appealed to announce a ceasefire to evacuate all the students.
“Prime Minister Modi conveyed his deep concern for the safety and security of the Indian students still remaining in Sumy. President Putin briefed Prime Minister about the ongoing measures related to humanitarian corridors for facilitating the evacuation of civilians including Indian students,” read the statement released by the Ministry of External Affairs on Monday.
According to a report by Republic Media Network, about 700 students who were stranded in Sumy amid heavy shelling from Russian forces, were evacuated by the special transportation facility arranged by the Indian government. In order to provide a safe passage to the buses, the vehicles were marked with the Red Cross symbol and the Indian flag. Apart from this, the buses were escorted especially by the convoy of the Red cross. The mutually coordinated ceasefire was provided especially for Indian students, and no other country was provided with such preference.
“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,” tweeted MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi. It is worth mentioning that the Government of India started rescuing stranded people from Ukraine on February 22 under ‘Operation Ganga’– two days before the Russian government officially announced a full-fledged attack on its neighbouring country. As per the Ministery of Civil Aviation press release, about 18 thousand Indians have been brought back by special flights so far. As many as 410 Indians were brought back on Tuesday by special Civilian flights from Ukraine’s neighbouring countries by two special civilian flights from Suceava.