A total of 24 flights have brought back more than 2,000 Indians stranded in Ukraine under ‘Operation Ganga’ as of March 2. Four IAF C-17 Globemasters that took off from India on Wednesday returned with 798 evacuees on Thursday. According to sources cited by ANI, the Indian government has 80 more repatriation flights under ‘Operation Ganga’ to evacuate approximately 17,000 Indian citizens from Ukraine by March 10.
The sources also told ANI that 35 evacuation flights have been planned from Romania’s capital Bucharest, 28 repatriation flights will airlift Indians from Hungary’s capital Budapest, nine flights are scheduled from Rzeszow, Poland, five flights will take off from Romania’s Suceava and three flights will take off from Kosice, Slovakia. Moreover, the IAF will further deploy its C-17 planes to aid the rescue efforts.
The flights to be deployed for ‘Operation Ganga’ belong to the fleet of Air India, Air India Express, IndiGo, Spice Jet, Vistara, and Go Air.
On Thursday, three more IAF C-17 aircraft took off for Romania, Hungary and Poland. The IAF rescue flights have also delivered a cumulative 9.7 tons of relief material for Ukrainians on their first trip to Ukraine’s neighbouring countries. A tweet by Indian Air Force read, “First four #IAF C-17 aircraft under #OperationGanga evacuated 798 Indian nationals using airfields in Romania, Hungary & Poland. They also supplied 9.7 tons relief material.”
