India on Monday launched ‘Operation Kaveri’ to evacuate its nationals as the fighting between the Sudanese Army and paramilitary groups intensified in the capital Khartoum.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed that ‘Operation Kaveri’ to evacuate its citizens from battle-torn Sudan is underway and about 500 Indians had reached the Port Sudan.
“Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More on their way. Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assist all our bretheren in Sudan,” the minister said in a twit.
The evacuation came days after Jaishankar spoke to his Saudi Arabia counterpart. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday chaired a high-level meeting to review the security situation in Sudan. India on Sunday said it has positioned two transport aircraft of the IAF in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah and a naval ship at a key port in Sudan as part of its contingency plans to evacuate the stranded Indians.
The government had on Friday said it was focusing on the safety of over 3,000 Indian citizens presently located throughout Sudan.
Meanwhile, France has evacuated five Indians along with citizens of 27 other countries as part of its evacuation mission from violence-hit Sudan.
The French embassy in India said 388 people from 28 countries, including India, were evacuated. “French evacuation operations are underway. Last night, two military flight rotations evacuated 388 people of 28 countries, including Indian nationals,” it tweeted.
French diplomatic sources said five Indian nationals were among those evacuated by France from Sudan. They said the evacuation operations were launched on Saturday and they were carried out by the French Air Force using A400M aircraft from the French military base in Djibouti. On Sunday, Saudi Arabia said it has evacuated from Sudan 66 citizens from “brotherly and friendly” foreign countries that included a few Indian nationals. People familiar with the matter said in New Delhi that Saudi Arabia evacuated three Indians who were part of the crew of a Saudi flight and they were stuck in Sudanese capital Khartoum.
