By IANS,
New Delhi: With a special chartered flight bringing 155 people from Libya Monday morning, over two-third of nearly 18,000 Indian nationals have been evacuated from the violence-torn north African country.
A chartered Fly Dubai flight with the last batch of 155 people who had crossed over from Libya to Dzerba in Tunisia returned to India in the early hours of Monday.
In all, 1,120 Indians had crossed over to Tunisia, all of whom have since returned home safely.
Another 67 Indians who had crossed over to Salloum in Egypt reached Mumbai Monday morning by a Gulf Air flight.
Giving an update on Operation Safe Homecoming, the multi-pronged operation to evacuate Indians from Libya, the external affairs ministry said over 12,000 Indian nationals, have been evacuated so far.
Chartered ship MV Red Star One returned to Malta from Misurata in Libya Sunday morning with 301 Indians and 29 foreign nationals on board. The passengers returned to India Sunday night, on special Jet Air and Kingfisher flights.
“All our nationals have thus been brought back from Malta,” the ministry said.
MV Red Star One would now set sail for Sirte in Libya Tuesday and reach its destination in 24 hours. It is expected to evacuate 600 people to Malta. Presently, there are 1,600 Indians in Sirte, many of who may be heading for Tripoli by road, for being airlifted from there, the ministry said.
MV Scotia Prince is on its way back to Alexandria with 972 people from Benghazi in Libya on board.
The ministry, however, added that the ship’s arrival has been delayed due to some engine trouble and it is now expected to reach Tuesday. All passengers will be flown back to India on three Egypt Air and one IL 76 flight March 9.
Naval vessels INS Jalashwa and INS Mysore are headed for Tripoli and expected to reach March 10, the last day for evacuating the remaining Indian nationals in Tripoli.
India launched Operation Safe Homecoming Feb 26 to bring back its nationals – the biggest such exercise mounted since the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait that forced thousands of Indians to flee to Jordan from where they were flown home.