Operation Kaveri: India evacuates over 3,000 citizens from Sudan
- Operation Kaveri has evacuated majority of Indians in Sudan so far, with the embassy also helping to evacuate Sri Lankan, Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationals.
The Indian government has evacuated 3,195 of the 3,400 citizens registered with the Indian embassy in Sudan, over a week after launching Operation Kaveri. Amid escalating conflict between rival factions in the North African nation since 15 April, India and other foreign countries have been working to evacuate their citizens from danger.
“What we did was that as soon as the fighting broke out in Khartoum, our Embassy in Khartoum immediately alerted and….one, reached out to as many members of the Indian community as they could. As it turns out, they pretty much reached out to almost all of them by and large,” said foreign secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra at a press briefing last week.
After moving them to a safer area within Khartoum City, buses were arranged to transport evacuees to Port Sudan in the country's northeast. The grueling 850-kilometer overland journey took between 12 to 18 hours.
Evacuees were then transported by naval ships, including INS Sumedha, INS Teg, and INS Tarkash, as well as 13 Indian Air Force planes. According to the Ministry of External Affairs, "Operation Kaveri" has evacuated 3,195 Indians so far, with the embassy also helping to evacuate Sri Lankan, Nepali, and Bangladeshi nationals.
High-level diplomacy and coordination from Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar and Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan facilitated these efforts. While Muraleedharan traveled to Jeddah to coordinate relief efforts, Jaishankar liaised with officials from the United States, UK, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE, and met with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to discuss the worsening situation in Sudan.
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First Published:3 May 2023, 01:49 PM IST
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