Be it the Yemen crisis, the Afghanistan crisis, the Ukraine-Russia battlefield or the Corona period, whenever it comes to bringing back the stranded Indians from any part of the world, the Government of India makes every effort to bring its people back safely. Similarly, once again the Indians living abroad are in trouble and this time the danger is in the African country of Sudan.
The situation in Sudan is going from bad to worse due to the ongoing civil war between the army and paramilitary forces. Regarding this, Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a review meeting of the security situation in Sudan through video conferencing on Friday (April 21, 2023). In this high level meeting, more than 3,000 Indians stranded in Sudan have been asked to prepare a plan to bring them safely to India.
Ceasefire is for 72 hours
In fact, a 72-hour ceasefire was announced in Sudan before Eid. Meanwhile, PM Modi has ordered to prepare a plan on all options for the evacuation of Indian citizens and to take them to a safe place. In this high level meeting, External Affairs Minister Dr. Several other senior officials, including Jaishankar, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, chiefs of Navy and Air Force and Ambassador of India to Sudan were also present in the meeting.
By the way, since Narendra Modi became the Prime Minister in 2014, the government has succeeded dozens of times in bringing back the Indian citizens trapped abroad safely. But, today we are going to tell you about some such operations when thousands of Indians were trapped in foreign countries due to war or any other reason and then the Government of India brought them back.
2014 (Libya)
In August 2014, civil war broke out for the second time in Libya. Due to this, thousands of Indian people were trapped there. Then the Government of India started a rescue operation. Under which flights were operated to Djerba in Tunisia to evacuate stranded Indians from Libya and Malta. During that time more than 1200 Indians were evacuated safely.
2015 (Operation Rahat)
Huthi rebel fighters caused unrest in Yemen’s capital Sanaa. Because of this, thousands of Indians living there were trapped, for which ‘Operation Rahat’ was run by the Government of India. This operation was carried out in the year 2015. The front of this operation was handled by the then Minister of State for External Affairs General VK Singh himself. In the operation which lasted for 10 days, the bravehearts of the Indian Army evacuated 5600 people, including 960 citizens from 41 countries.
2020 (Vande Bharat Mission)
During the Kovid-19 crisis, countries around the world had restricted movement on their borders and airlines. At that time, the Government of India had evacuated lakhs of Indians stranded in China, Iran, Italy. According to the PIB report, a total of 12 lakh 69 thousand 172 passengers were brought back to India under the Vande Bharat Mission before and during the lockdown i.e. till 11 September 2020.
2021 (Operation Devi Shakti)
When the Taliban took over Afghanistan, there was chaos in Afghanistan. Everyone wanted to run away from the fear of Taliban. At the same time, thousands of Indian citizens were also trapped in the war in Afghanistan, then the Government of India had evacuated 669 people from Afghanistan under Operation Devi Shakti. These included 448 Indian and 206 Afghan nationals. The Afghan citizens who have been evacuated from there mostly included people of Hindu and Sikh communities.
2022 (Operation Ganga)
In February 2022, war broke out between Russia and Ukraine. Because of this thousands of Indians were stuck in Ukraine. Then the Government of India, taking immediate action, launched ‘Operation Ganga’ and sent four of its Union Ministers to the neighboring countries of Ukraine so that they could take immediate action regarding the rescue. At the same time, India had safely evacuated its citizens through the neighboring countries of Ukraine including Romania, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Moldova.
The Government of India had run about 80 sorties under Operation Ganga to bring about 20,000 Indians back home safely. The thing to note here is that citizens of other countries also used the Indian flag to escape from Ukraine during this period.