New Delhi: India has brought back over 17,100 of its nationals from Ukraine so far while around 700 Indian students remained stuck in the northeastern city of Sumy with their evacuation dependent on the facilitation of a safe passage by Russian and Ukrainian authorities.
In the last few days, India has been focusing primarily on ways to get the Indian students out of Sumy, a city that is around 60 km from the Russian border.
The prospect of Indian students' evacuation brightened on Monday when Russia said it would start a ceasefire and open "humanitarian corridors" in key Ukrainian cities, including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Sumy.
Russian news agency Interfax, quoting Russian authorities, reported that Russia has informed the United Nations, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) of opening humanitarian corridors in Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv, Sumy.
However, there was no report yet of operationalisation of such corridors in Sumy as well as in other cities with Ukrainian authorities criticising Moscow for the selection of the evacuation routes, saying they will mostly lead to Russia and its ally Belarus.
People familiar with the matter said India is hopeful of securing a safe exit for the Indian students in Sumy soon, as the issue was taken up by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in separate phone conversations.
It is learnt that the exit of the students from Sumy will depend on security clearances from both the Russian and Ukrainian sides.
On the overall evacuation mission, officials said it is nearing completion as over 17,100 citizens were brought back home under 'Operation Ganga', officials said.
"Under Operation Ganga, so far 83 flights have brought over 17,100 Indians back to India," said an official, adding three flights are scheduled to operate over the next 24 hours.
India has been bringing back its nationals from Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova after they crossed over to these countries from Ukraine through land border transit points.
Ukraine had closed its airspace for civilian aircraft after Russia began the military operation.
The evacuation mission was launched on February 26 following Russia's military aggression against Ukraine.
The Indians were brought back in 83 flights and seven of them landed in the last 24 hours, they said.
The total number of Indians who returned onboard these seven flights is over 1250. In terms of departure points, there will be two flights from Suceava and one flight from Bucharest in the next 24 hours, they said.
The officials said nearly 22,000 Indians have exited Ukraine since the issuance of advisory weeks before the conflict began. They said the control room of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) well as the control centres operated by the Indian embassies continue to operate round-the-clock. The officials said the MEA control room has attended to 12,582 calls and 9,131 emails till the afternoon of March 7.
