In a major breakthrough, the Indian authorities announced on Tuesday afternoon that they have managed to safely evacuate all 694 Indian students stranded in eastern Ukraine's conflict zone of Sumy.
"Last night, I checked with the control room, 694 Indian students remain stranded in Sumy. Today, they have all left in buses for Poltava," said Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri who returned from Hungary on Monday.
In another successful evacuation, India has brought out 57 of the 75 sailors who were stranded in Mykolaiv Port.
"Mission intervened to evacuate 75 Indian sailors stranded in Mykolaiv Port. Yesterday buses arranged by Mission evacuated a total of 57 sailors including 2 Lebanese & 3 Syrians. Route constraints precluded evacuation of the balance 23 sailors. Mission is attempting their evacuation today," the Indian Embassy in Ukraine tweeted Tuesday afternoon.
A file image of Indian students being evacuated from Pisochyn (Image courtesy: Indian embassy in Ukraine)
India had been strongly pressing both the Russian and the Ukrainian sides to allow a local ceasefire, just to get a corridor to bring out the students from the conflict zone.
After having successfully brought out over 21,000 of its citizens from the warzone in Ukraine, New Delhi had been completely focused on evacuating its citizens from the troubled areas of Sumy and Kharkiv.
Buses organised by the Indian embassy have been bringing the Indian students out of Pisochyn in the Kharkiv area to the Polish and Romanian border from Lviv.
#WATCH | A convoy consisting of 12 buses left from Sumy, Ukraine earlier today. All Indians there have been evacuated. Officials of the Indian Embassy & Red Cross are escorting them. Bangladeshis & Nepalis have also been facilitated. They are currently enroute to Poltava region. pic.twitter.com/0ieUCcjl0S
— ANI (@ANI) March 8, 2022
However, evacuating Indians from Sumy in the northeast on the border with Russia, was still a massive challenge due to intense shelling in the region and lack of secure transportation.
A team from the Embassy of India had been stationed in Poltava to coordinate the safe passage of Indian students stranded in Sumy to Western borders.
The Indian embassy in Ukraine had already alerted the Indian students to remain ready for evacuation.
"Confirmed time & date will be issued soon. Indian students advised to be ready to leave on short notice. Be safe, be strong," tweeted the Indian embassy in Ukraine on Sunday night.
"The good thing in Sumy is, of course that they're concentrated, they are together in one or two locations. So it should be a little easier to pick them up rather than scattered across the city," the MEA spokesperson had said.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin and also Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy yesterday, expressing deep concern over the safety and security of Indian students still stuck in the conflict zone.
Also Read: Indian students in Sumy stuck amid Russia and Ukraine’s blame game
