India has so far evacuated more than 4,400 Indian citizens through 19 special flights under ‘Operation Sindhu’ launched on 18 June to bring back its citizens amidst Iran-Israel struggle. The Ministry of External Affairs gave this information.
The ministry said in a post on ‘X’ that a new batch of 173 Indians extracted from Iran reached Delhi late on Thursday from Yervan, the capital of Armenia, through a flight.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal, in his weekly press conference on Thursday, said in response to questions asked about ‘Operation Sindhu’ that New Delhi is assessing the situation at the ground level and it will be decided whether the campaign should be continued or not.
According to the data shared by him during the press conference, more than 3,400 Indian citizens have been evacuated through 14 flights from Iran since the onset of Operation Sindhu.
Later, Jaiswal shared the updated number of those who have been removed from these countries after the aircraft from Yervan in a post on ‘X’. He said, “A special aircraft from Yervan in Armenia reached New Delhi on 26 June at 10:30 pm, in which 173 Indian citizens have been brought from Iran.”
He said, “Under Operation Sindhu, a total of 4,415 Indian citizens (3,597 from Iran and 818 from Israel) have been extracted through 19 special withdrawal flights including three aircraft of the Indian Air Force.” 14 OCI (migrant citizen of India) card holder, nine Nepali citizens, four Sri Lankan citizens and an Iranian spouse of an Indian citizen were also expelled from Iran.
India said on 24 June that it is “seriously worried” about the overall situation, but welcomes the ceasefire report between Iran and Israel.
A few hours after US President Donald Trump claimed a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, India said that it is ready to play its role to resolve the situation. India insisted on adopting the path of ‘dialogue and diplomacy’ to move forward.
Jaiswal was asked on Thursday whether India would continue ‘Operation Sindhu’ after the Iran-Israel ceasefire and what is the number of Indian citizens extracted from both countries till now?
The spokesman said, “We started Operation Sindhu on 18 June. Iran has around 10,000 people from the Indian community and about 40,000 Indian citizens in Israel. ”He said that an Iranian woman has also been evacuated, the wife of an Indian citizen.