Operation Ganga: 242 Indians stranded in Ukraine's Sumy arrive in Delhi

New Delhi, March 11: A special flight carrying 242 Indian nationals evacuated from war-hit Ukraine arrived at Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport in Delhi from Poland on Friday.

Most of the Indian nationals who arrived were from the North-Eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy. For the last several days, Sumy has been witnessing heavy shelling and intense exchange of fire between Russians and Ukrainian forces. "Bombardment occurred even on the day we left, not in our area but in the city. The Indian government, Red Cross, & Indian Embassy helped us a lot & built a green corridor to safely evacuate us. I'm thankful to PM Modi Ji," said Hardeep, a student of Sumy State University. Also read | Jammu and Kashmir: Army's Cheetah chopper crashes in Bandipora's Gurez Prerna Chaudhary, another student from Sumy, said, "We kept ourselves strong, we had the belief that the Indian embassy will evacuate us soon. We faced no problems (during the evacuation), we got direct buses, trains. We were properly evacuated. We did not even have to stand on the border, all the arrangements were nicely done." Earlier, arrangements for the evacuation of stranded Indian students were made on both sides of Ukraine as well as the Russian border. Ukrainian drivers were not willing to drive towards the Russian side. However, local arrangements for buses were made. India demanded escort from Ukraine and it was provided after some delay.

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The #OperationGanga reminds me of what late Sushma Swaraj ji had said about PM Narendra Modi Ji’s global outreach & influence as well as his commitment & ability to secure every Indian in any part of the world. MEA team lead by Dr. S. Jaishankar Ji has executed PM’s plan perfectly

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- Kiren Rijiju (@kiren.rijiju) 11 Mar 2022

Red Cross also helped and humanitarian passage for all international students was created and students were finally evacuated. They were asked to maintain radio silence until they crossed the danger zone. India has brought back over 20,000 stranded citizens from the war-torn country. Meanwhile, students of Sumy State University in Ukraine showed their gratitude towards Prime Minister Narendra Modi for making efforts for the safe evacuation of Indian nationals from the war-torn country. Also read | AAP's Bhagwant Mann to take oath as Punjab CM on March 16 "We want to thank PM Modi for making efforts for taking us safely back to India," said the group of students who reached Poland after evacuating from Sumy in Ukraine. The students also thanked the Indian World Forum, People and Government of Ukraine, Government of India, RedCross and Embassy of India in Kyiv for their contribution to Operation Ganga.