The Indian government has lined up two special Air India flights to Romania on Friday to bring back Indians stranded in Ukraine. As Ukraine had closed it’s airspace for civil aviation operations on Thursday following a major invasion by the Russian military, many Indians are stranded across the country.
As per the latest reports, AI 1941 is scheduled to take off at 2 pm Friday from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport, and AI 1943 is set to depart from Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport at 4 pm. Both flights will land in Romania, where Ukraine-based Indians are expected to board them to return to India.
Indian officials said that Dreamliner planes would be deployed for the evacuation flights with a passenger capacity of 256.
“The flights have been planned after a directive from the ministry of external affairs,” said an official in the civil aviation ministry. “Though there is no confirmation on the number of people who will fly back on the flights, around 500 passengers are expected to board the two aircraft.”
The flights would take around seven hours 45 minutes to reach Romania. “They are expected to land back [here in India] on Saturday morning,” said a Delhi airport official.
India’s external affairs minister S Jaishankar late on Thursday, tweeted, “Deeply appreciate the support from FM @BogdanAurescu of Romania on evacuating Indian nationals from Ukraine. @MEAIndia is working with @MAERomania to ensure border crossing expeditiously. Times of difficulty… that’s what friends are for.”
Since Russia declared war against Ukraine, the Indian embassy and the central government have constantly been working to ensure the safety and security of the Indian nationals and students stranded there. Over 20,000 Indian citizens are stranded in Ukraine, and about 4,000 have already left.
“The topmost priority of the government is the safety of Indians in Ukraine,” said foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla at a special MEA briefing.
A number of steps have been taken to deal with the emerging situation in Ukraine. We started the registration of Indian nationals in Ukraine about a month ago. Based on online registration, we found that 20,000 Indian nationals were there, Foreign Secretary Harsh V Shringla said in a media briefing.
To assist in evacuating Indian nationals from Ukraine, India has sent MEA teams to the land borders with Ukraine in Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic and Romania.
